PROVIDENCE AND 
CALAMITY 

CHARLES W. HEISLEY 




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roPYUICIIT DEPOSIT. 



PROVIDENCE AND 
CALAMITY 

BY ^^v 
CHARLES W. HEISLEY 




BOSTON 
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1909 



Copyright 1909 
Sherman, French &> Company 



8T53r 

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LIBRARY of 0ONQRESS 

• ' ™ived 

MAY 26 1909 

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CLASS <*\ JtXc N„. 



TO THE MEMORY OF 
MY PRECIOUS SISTER 

ELIZABETH HEISLEY WEAVER 

THIS BOOK IS 

AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Many Perplexities .... 1 
II. Prerogative Under Law . . 11 

III. The True Theory of Provi- 

dence 

IV. Improvements and Providence 
V. Law and Providential Inter- 
positions 

VI. Influences with Providence . 

VII. Providence and Nature 

VIII. Providence and the Creature . 

IX. The Mental Realm .... 

X. The Mind of God in Creation . 

XL Man and His Sphere 

XII. Omnipotence and Omniscience 

of God 112 

XIII. The Bible and Nature . . . 117 

XIV. God and the Human Mind . .124 

XV. Oppositions to Providence . .138 

XVI. The Place of Remedies . . .143 

XVII. Man the Responsible Agent of 

Providence 157 

XVIII. The Mercy of Providence . .167 

XIX. Religion and Providence . .173 



20 



39 

52 
69 
78 
83 
90 
107 



PREFACE 

The following essay maintains that Providence 
interposes occasionally in the events of our world, 
and in the deeds and destinies of mankind. He 
interposes thus, as occasion may require, because 
he organized the universe as a system, with all 
parts adapted to the purposes of the whole by 
virtue of powers given to every part. 

He ordained laws by which his creatures must 
live in order to enjoy and profit by their exist- 
ence. These laws are not changeable, nor sus- 
ceptible to any variation in their action. God 
governs the world strictly by them, and has or- 
dained that the welfare of his creatures and the 
improvement of the world shall depend upon their 
strict observance. Hence, in ordaining man to 
dominion over the world, he gave into his hands 
certain great powers over whatsoever was possible 
to occur to man or to it. 

And thus Providence presides over creation, in- 
terposing according as conditions and occasions 
may require. Therefore no sickness or accident 
occurs by Providence, except such as are necessary 
for the correction of faults which man can not, 
or will not, remedy. And many of these imper- 
fections are never corrected; which fact shows 
that God refuses to pass beyond certain limits of 
his mercy to improve the conditions of persons 
who would remain incorrigible, thus leaving them 



PREFACE 

in control of their destiny and free to do evil or 
good. 

These, in brief, are the conditions upon which 
Providence seems to all plain observers to pro- 
ceed. All opinions contrary to this course of 
providential procedure have but little, if any, 
seeming appearances to support them. Indeed, 
they have only verbal declarations, contrary to 
appearances or destitute of them, except in occa- 
sional instances just sufficient to justify our con- 
tention that Providence interposes occasionally, 
and for some specific purpose only. 

And many of his interpositions are the result 
of the influence of importunate supplication. 
This fact intimates that if prayer had not been 
offered, the favor he was induced to confer would 
have been withholden. Thus we discover that 
Providence is not absolute, and that man may be 
greatly influential over providential interposi- 
tions. 

The views of divine Providence presented in 
this essay may be read with some curiosity and 
concern. The believer in an absolute and uncon- 
ditional fore-ordination by the decree of God 
and the control of all events by his hand may hesi- 
tate when he discovers that this attempt at modi- 
fying the doctrine as commonly received may seem 
to disrespect the greatness of God, and attach too 
much importance to man and his deeds. 

The curious reader may be anxiously looking 
for some new ideas upon this perplexing subject, 



PREFACE 

which ought to be placed within the range of 
observation more fully and reasonably than is 
possible in regard to the old theory ; for whatever 
is mysterious creates curiosity and a wish that 
there were no mysteries if they cannot be made 
plain. We trust in pondering these arguments 
on the doctrine of Divine Providence, that much 
of the mystery may disappear, and that God and 
his dealings with our world and race may be more 
fully and comfortably discerned, while reason, 
also, may be gratified and faith in the goodness 
and justice of God may appear to rest upon a 
broader and more satisfactory foundation; or, 
rather, that the foundation of former times may 
appear properly modified to agree with the real 
merciful disposition of God, with the remedial 
properties in the entire creation, and with the 
good or evil influences of mankind on the events 
which shall take place in our world. 

In one sense we are concerned in regard to the 
leaving one doctrine for another; or, as noted 
above, the modifying one doctrine, and, instead of 
it, augmenting another. The tendency is to va- 
grancy of mind, and sometimes of morals. But 
all this is as nothing if we can only find the truth 
or get nearer to it. A person who honestly seeks 
for the truth is safe in all new regions of thought. 

In our theory, God may seem to be farther off 
from the world and man, inasmuch as it may seem 
that he has less to do with us than he had accord- 
ing to the ancient doctrine of his providences. 



PREFACE 

But it should be noted that his creatures do many 
acts good and evil, which the old doctrine declares 
are done, or influenced to be done, by him. This 
doctrine considers God nearer because he has more 
to do with all that happens ; but we maintain that 
this separates him, in effect, much farther, be- 
cause we cannot feel, according to the common 
belief, that he is nearer, but farther off, if the 
distance is a moral separation. Surely, the more 
we esteem the righteousness and goodness of Prov- 
idence, the nearer he is to us; and the more he 
discriminates between good and evil, and aids the 
one and hinders the other, the more we depend 
upon and cleave to him. So that when we say, 
if a man does well and removes evil, and improves 
the world and himself, that thereby Providence 
has that much less occasion to interpose, and that 
much more esteem for man and man for him, it is 
only to say that they are nearer and dearer to each 
other. 

So we can allay any concern about this essay, 
and arise to maintain human self-respect and the 
regard due to the truth, which should not beg its 
way by offering apologies for speaking out in 
the presence of its inferiors. Nevertheless, it is 
true that while the truth is pre-eminent and al- 
ways has the right of way, yet sometimes it is 
better to reserve it for the most fitting time ; and 
sometimes it is better that it should not be made 
known. The circumstances and the parties re- 
vealing it, and those who may receive it, should 



PREFACE 

be determining considerations whether or not it 
should be disclosed. 

But it is very different when a truth or doctrine 
has been already before the people, or partially 
or excessively stated; then, for the safety of the 
faith and its votaries, the limited statement needs 
a re-statement, and the excessive requires a modi- 
fied presentation. The latter is that which is 
here attempted; whether or not it has been done 
with clearness and success can be known only by 
as thoughtful perusal as there was care in its pro- 
duction. 

The author would prayerfully commend this 
brief volume to those who may have been led to 
doubt concerning the goodness of God, when 
they have been mourning the departure of dear 
ones, who seem to have died when every tie on 
earth indicated that they might and should have 
remained on earth for many precious years. 
They may discover that not Providence, but hu- 
man imperfection, is to be deprecated, and frail- 
ties remedied by a more careful observance and 
thorough knowledge of the laws of health and 
safety. 

C. W. H. 



CHAPTER FIRST 

MANY PERPLEXITIES 

'* That things to mortals are mysterious, 

Is not because the things themselves are dark, 
But the perceptions through which they are viewed." 

Bates. 

I. GOD AND HIS WORLD 

The most oppressive query in the minds of 
men at the present time is as to how far, and in 
what respect, God rules and controls the affairs of 
this world. Indeed, this query is as old as our 
race, and has perplexed all rational men continu- 
ously. The struggles of learning in this direc- 
tion are apparent in every variety of criticism of 
God's dealings with his creatures. 

It seems that those who rely most sincerely 
upon the text of the Bible, as it has been resolved 
into church creeds, allow no retrenchment or ex- 
tension of what their respective creeds have de- 
clared to be the sense thereof. But there is a 
state of theological unrest prevailing at this time 
that indicates the existence of a strong desire for 
more light upon many texts of Scripture and a 
wider extension of their meanings than has been 
allowed hitherto. 

Chiefly among these texts, we presume to think, 
are those which inculcate the doctrine of divine 
1 



2 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

Providence. If there is any consideration which 
would justify our attempt at an advanced investi- 
gation of this subject, it would be the fact that 
there exist so many beliefs in regard to it: one 
class believes that God rules and controls every 
thing in an absolute and unconditional manner; 
another believes that he governs all things con- 
ditionally and under the limitations of the laws 
which he had previously ordained for their exist- 
ence and operations; another believes that vir- 
tually and really there are two gods ruling all 
things, — the one good and the other evil, — and 
that in the contests between these deities all the 
beneficial or evil results which affect our world 
have their origin. 

Though multitudes of men take no part in 
these and other notions concerning the divine ad- 
ministration, yet all men are less or more in doubt 
and fear, and are asking for some advancing light 
on this subject, and many expect that ere long it 
should come. It is doubtful whether such broader 
light will ever rise on this subject if men continue 
to view the Holy Scriptures only according to 
the trend of creeds, which do not give rest to a 
faith which would honor God as being purely 
good and righteous, as the Scriptures declare him 
to be. 

The creeds which attribute all the occurrences 
of our world to the purposes and influences of 
God would be impossible to the divine character. 
If this is so, then such a belief is not authorized 



MANY PERPLEXITIES S 

by the Scriptures; and that it is not thus sanc- 
tioned may be seen by the following arguments of 
this essay. It may be sufficient to say, before we 
enter into the discussion, that the Fathers of the 
church did not make concession to the fact that 
the Scriptures teach that many of the events of 
this life are declared to be the successful works of 
evil agencies — especially devils — who effected 
their purposes even at the same time in which God 
was opposing them. Nor did they allow that he 
governs the world according to the laws with 
which he sustains and binds every creature. This 
error of theirs is often exposed by natural oc- 
currences, when calamities from storms and other 
natural forces fall upon those already over- 
whelmed by evils, and no possible good proceeds 
afterward from them, but rather, additional in- 
juries. The Fathers and their successors down 
to this present day would argue that it is all ac- 
complished by the hand of God, and in due time 
he will make it plain and show us that he brought 
great good out of it. But the afflicted ones ask 
whether it was necessary for Almighty God to 
resort to such measures in order to do them good. 
Those that mourn their too early dead, from 
the carelessness and wickedness of men, and in- 
deed from their own remissness in the presence of 
danger and disease, cannot see any hand of God 
in it, but only evil influences that were exerted 
against God's will in those cases. 

The true doctrine of Providence is that God 



4 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

governs the world according to the laws he has 
ordained, and that he interposes only to sustain 
and promote his purposes of goodness and right- 
eousness towards all his creatures. This doctrine 
accords with the genuine character of God> agrees 
with the simple statements of the Scriptures, 
and is corroborated by the remedial plans of 
grace and also by the healing and restorative 
properties throughout nature. And last but not 
least, it commends itself to pure and unperverted 
reason, by which we may and must form our 
own opinions of all things which pertain to our 
welfare, or which may admit of our services and 
co-operation with the God and Saviour of our 
world. 

This doctrine assigns man to his true place as 
God's steward, and makes him accountable — as 
he surely is — for the good or evil which may 
prevail, wherever he may be. It constitutes him 
the keeper of his brother, and assigns to him, and 
not to God, the responsibility for his own wel- 
fare, as to sickness or health, as to happiness 
or misery, as to virtue or vice, as to life or death, 
and as to the length of his own life, whether it 
shall be extended to only thirty or possibly to a 
hundred years. Hence God sustains and governs 
creation through the laws he had ordained, and 
interposes infrequently to accomplish some right- 
eous or gracious purpose. In order to make this 
position more obvious it may be declared that in 
every case recorded in the Holy Scriptures in 



MANY PERPLEXITIES 5 

which God has sent calamity upon an individual 
or upon multitudes of people, it was because of 
their wickedness. 

Upon the other hand, whenever catastrophe has 
fallen upon the good and evil alike, God is not 
named, or does not claim the agency or cause, as 
if it were acknowledged that the laws of nature, 
acting according to their tendency without God's 
influence at the time, produced the calamity ; and 
if at any time the good were included with the 
evil, it was because their relation with the evil, and 
the greatness of God's purpose therein, jutified 
the divine character in the visitation of a com- 
mon woe upon the people. And furthermore, 
whenever some blessing had been conferred in 
common upon the just and upon the unjust, it 
was attributed to the act of God in his impartial 
goodness and fostering care. 

Thus in these three several manifestations of 
providential care, it appears that the justice and 
mercy of God were seeking occasions to show 
forth his kindness, mingled in the circumstances 
and conditions of a disordered world needing reg- 
ulation and salutary discipline. It is in this man- 
ner of regulation and discipline of the world that 
we may be enabled to discover the difference in 
favor of seasonable interpositions of Providence 
as against the terrifying and unnatural doctrine 
which teaches that Providence appoints diseases 
and death, starvation and war, and thus effects, 
in spite of human agencies to the contrary, the 



6 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

annihilation of families and nations and unof- 
fending little children and even also of his dear 
and devoted adorers, who night and day rejoice 
and glory in his goodness. 

The two qualities in the nature of God which 
include all the moral and affectionate character- 
istics by which he is pleased to be known and 
loved by his creatures, are goodness and right- 
eousness. Now, his goodness in making provision 
for the welfare of man is of a most discriminat- 
ing character, and suited to what he desires man 
to be and to do. It is not a goodness of pure 
indulgence, but of appropriate care, or otherwise 
the good becomes evil in effect by intemperance 
and misuse on the part of man. His righteous- 
ness forbids injustice toward his creatures, and is 
required to be of the same quality in us as it is 
in himself. In this character he presents himself 
and requires us to manifest the same to him. In- 
deed, he comes forth before us and says : " Judge 
between thee and me, O house of Israel," and de- 
clares that we shall all appear before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ, to be judged at that day 
which he hath appointed. Thus he presents his 
providential dealings to our examination and 
sensible judgment on the basis of his character. 
But man: 

" Would prove the direct enemy of man, 
His boasted reason wielded to control; 
Dark systems of despair; his vaunted skill, 
To forge the fetters which enthrall the soul." 



MANY PERPLEXITIES 7 

II. MAN ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVIL 

The foregoing suggestions are sustained by 
facts too significant to admit of any meaning 
essentially to the contrary. Surely the burning 
of the Iriquois Theatre in Chicago, and of the 
Steamer " General Slocum " at New York, in each 
of which catastrophies many hundreds of men, 
women, and children perished in awful horrors and 
sufferings, and the burning of the Opera House 
at Boyertown, Pennsylvania, on the night of 
Monday, January 13, 1908, in which some sixty- 
five persons perished in like manner, are sufficient 
evidences. 

All of these cases occurred in each instance 
because of greed or negligence of the owners 
or care-takers, and it is impossible to the most 
susceptible credulity or devoted faith in God 
to attribute these cruelties to him, either by his 
act or consent. If these evils were for procuring 
greater future good, then it suggests the impos- 
sible thought that he chooses to be cruel before 
he can be good to mankind. But, rather, it in- 
timates that he does not prevent our liberty to be 
avaricious and negligent in concert with human 
depravity and the wiles of Satan. To believe 
that he, whom Jesus taught us to call " Our 
Father, who art in Heaven," influenced these and 
other evils to occur is censuring rather than glori- 
fying him, and while defending his righteousness 
and goodness, it is implying truly an accusation 



8 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

against the evils and disorders of men and the 
fallen nature of the world. 

Mourners over the victims of wrong, over the 
prematurely dead, penitents over neglect and mor- 
tal deeds, refuse to charge God with evils for 
which you might be accountable, and excuse not 
yourselves from a better life and avoidance of the 
evils which cause unnecessary sufferings and death 
to yourselves and others. Pondering the follow- 
ing pages, you may become persuaded that most 
of the evils of our minds and bodies, and of our 
actions, habitually called " divine providences," 
are the consequences of our many-fold faults and 
sins, which we may correct. 

III. RIGHTEOUSNESS AND GOODNESS 
PARAMOUNT 

There are two great dispositions in the Creator 
— righteousness and goodness — according to 
which he always acts towards his creatures who 
are even wilfully violating his laws. He also 
keeps himself by these dispositions, because they 
are like him, exist in him, and flow out from him 
over our world, for its welfare. It is because 
these horrible calamities are laid to him, as if ap- 
pointing and causing them to come to pass, con- 
trary to his righteousness and goodness, that they 
are called " mysterious providences." And so we 
stand in awe of God, while we have every reason 
for loving and confiding in him. 

These are not mysterious, neither are they Di- 



MANY PERPLEXITIES 9 

vine Providences. They are plainly the conse- 
quences of our not regarding the laws which God 
had appointed to operate everything in creation. 
We are wicked, ignorant, and negligent of them, 
— and need not be, at least so much so. Did not 
one or all these faults result in men causing these 
calamities named above? Can anyone suppose 
that God prompted persons to be wicked, ignorant 
and negligent? If so, what had become of his 
righteousness and goodness? Why, these are the 
very crimes that pertain to that monster which in 
the Bible is called "Satan," "Devil," "De- 
stroyer," " Enemy " of God and man — said to 
be the work of our Heavenly Father. The rea- 
son is that because while God is known to be with- 
out limitation in power and knowledge, men have 
felt that he must be in and through every cre- 
ated thing; that it can have no power but what 
he gives it every instant. And so he is the power 
and knowledge which act through and by every 
thing; and all that happens in our world is, they 
say, in some way influenced and effected by him. 
This plausible error they affirm and repeat, though 
every living creature, adult and child, feels in him- 
self that he acts by his own powers and desires, as 
plainly as if there were no divine influences. If 
one is hungry, it is his hunger that prompts 
him to go to the table; if one is suffering 
pain, it is his pain that prompts him to seek re- 
lief ; if one pities another, it is his compassion 
that moves him to bring relief; if one hates an- 



10 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

other, it is his malice that urges him to injure the 
other. The actions that emanate from any emo- 
tion of mind or passion arise out of the person 
himself, because they start from the force of his 
life power, which is derived from all parts of his 
body, heart, brain and the organs that con- 
stitute him a living creature. 



CHAPTER SECOND 

PREROGATIVE UNDER LAW 

I. GOD THE UNCHANGEABLE 

Some one might reply to what has just been 
written that the righteousness and authority of 
God may justify certain acts which are wrong 
for man to perpetrate, but are quite right if 
accomplished by Divine Providence. They might 
say that nothing is right purely in itself, because 
God, from himself, makes anything right or 
wrong as he may please. If he says a wrong 
thing is right, that makes it right ; but God never 
did this, and never could, simply because he can- 
not lie ; " And he changeth not." 

Inasmuch as he cannot do an unrighteous act, 
nor cruelly afflict, so he could not influence in any 
way the tragedies to which attention has already 
been called, nor to any other awful and unneces- 
sary suffering. The Holy Scriptures afford no in- 
stances of which it is declared that God, by his 
direct exertion, sent calamities or any other evils 
alike upon the righteous and wicked, or only 
upon the righteous. But throughout the Bible 
history he promises prosperity and safety to those 
who do righteously, and threatens the wicked with 
a great variety of evils, and declares that he him- 
self would send upon them. Wherever he speaks 
of natural calamities falling alike on the good 
11 



12 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

and evil ones of our race, as when St. Paul was 
shipwrecked, it is said that a great storm arose, 
as if the laws which control the weather had done 
it and Providence had not interposed to prevent 
it. So, also, there was a great famine in Egypt 
for seven years, by the operation of the laws of 
the physical world, in concert probably with the 
purpose of God. 

All of which shows that some events occur with- 
out God; some in part, and some wholly, by his 
influence; but in all cases events occur by the 
force of laws and according to their way of 
operating, by the power which God put in them 
at the beginning and which he continually sus- 
tains ; and they operate not by his exertion every 
time they act, but by their inherent power. 
Every creature is a machine with motive power 
installed in it, and always running until life 
leaves it. But these living machines have minds 
and wills and power which the Creator commanded 
them to use, and also how, and for what purposes, 
to use them. Indeed, the power in us is so great 
in many of our organs that if we, or any other 
cause, hindered their operations, we would decay 
and perish, and if action were stopped, it would 
induce death to the organ and to the whole body. 

II. NATURE SELF-ACTING 

Thus much only has been written regarding the 
power that is in every living creature to act for 



PREROGATIVE UNDER LAW 13 

and by itself, to keep before the mind of the 
reader this one of the reasons for believing that 
many events occur which may be entirely by 
man, exclusive of any influence from Divine Prov- 
idence. Or, in other words, with still larger 
application to the sphere of providential rule, the 
universe runs on, producing effects according to 
its several parts and the laws in and over those 
parts. On this account Providence interposes 
occasionally, and only so often as his righteous- 
ness and goodness may justify. 

If we can establish this theory by intelligent 
reasons, it will become very evident that our Cre- 
ator is far more benevolent than he could be if he 
ruled and over-ruled the powers of his creatures 
and the laws he has ordained for their lives and 
actions. This theory will appear as a monument 
to the fact that in no way did God influence or 
sanction the carnival of horrors whose terrible 
glare of obloquy has shocked the soul of the 
writer concerning the providential dealings of 
our Heavenly Father with his poor creatures. If 
one stands off and looks at human sufferings 
from natural causes and evil agencies, he may be- 
lieve that they are too great and continuous to 
allow the thought that God is willing to add to 
them new and horrible ones. It will not assuage 
the memory of long years nor the true estimate 
of the worth of multitudes, to say that we are all 
miserable sinners and should not expect any lot 
from God but that of suffering, disease, and a 



14 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

time fixed by divine decree when we each should 
die or be executed by divine sentence. 

We note that throughout the Bible history 
God promises prosperity and safety to those who 
would do righteously, and threatens the wicked 
with great and various evils. This declaration 
was carried out in many instances toward the 
righteous and wicked. We think that this was 
done in certain cases; the main purpose of God 
in this promise and threat, as they were in each 
case fulfilled, was to keep before the people of 
that era of Jewish history the fact that our God 
is supreme over all the gods which people be- 
lieved existed. It was done, also, to condemn 
wickedness and approve righteousness, and to 
make it plain to all men that sin brings misery 
and punishment, and that righteousness is profita- 
ble and worthy of reward. 

III. LAWS OF NATURE PREVAIL 

But let the reader observe that all who did evil 
or good were not thus rewarded. It never was so, 
is not now, as every person discovers ; it never can 
be so, until the righteous and wicked shall have 
been set off apart in two distinct and separate 
bodies or communities. This is to take place, as 
the Scriptures declare, only at the end of the 
world, at the General Judgment of the last Great 
Day. 

The good and the evil ones of mankind are 



PREROGATIVE UNDER LAW 15 

mingled and associated together in temporal busi- 
ness, in pleasures, in families, and so closely allied 
in all respects that such discrimination by reward- 
ing or punishing one, or a few among many, is 
impossible in the very nature of the cases, with- 
out changing everything, or making quite a dif- 
ferent world. For example: Here is a family, 
some of whom are obedient to God, others diso~ 
bedient; their worldly prosperity depends for all 
of them upon their farm. Is it possible to save 
the obedient ones from adversity when, by a 
drought, God would entail adversity upon the 
rebellious part of that family ? Can we suppose 
that he could punish that unworthy part of the 
family by sending disease or violence upon them, 
and give health to the faithful ones? We know 
right well that good and evil come equally upon 
both parts of a family, without consideration of 
any difference of respective merit. Being to- 
gether in company with each other, and in inter- 
ests, they share the same lot of good or ill, there 
being no possibility of alteration in these natural 
conditions. 

In many instances the most worthy of mankind 
are those who are least prosperous, while often 
the worst of our race are most affluent and have 
more worldly enjoyment and a longer life in 
which to indulge in it. 



16 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

IV. NATURE EXPLAINS SCRIPTURE 

The foregoing facts may enable us to unravel 
those passages of Scripture which award to the 
righteous prosperity, and to the wicked adversity, 
while we see that these awards are not generally 
fulfilled, the good ones among men quite fre- 
quently being deprived of prosperity and the evil 
ones becoming prosperous. We would remark on 
this variance between the expressions or declara- 
tions of the Holy Scriptures, that they must be 
modified by the foundation truths in nature, and 
also by circumstances and occurrences which 
make it impossible for certain things to come to 
pass precisely as the Scriptures declare. It may 
be that it means that these rewards apply to men's 
lives in the long run, and to the future world. 
It may be that it means that men shall reap their 
rewards in their spiritual beings. At any rate, 
we know that the rewards of temporal or provi- 
dential good and evil were specially applied only 
to a few of the good or bad people. And it seems 
less so now than in former times. In those days 
God did send drought and moisture on large 
tracts of the country and over large bodies of 
people as reward for their conduct, including the 
good as well as the evil ones. It may have been 
meant by this to stir up the good part of the peo- 
ple to exert themselves to reform the evil-doers; 
and it may have been intended by the wicked par- 
taking of the common prosperity given to the 



PREROGATIVE UNDER LAW 17 

righteous to affect their better feelings, and thus 
induce them to reverence and obey God. 

Yet it does not seem as exact and equal justice, 
according to the full significance of the Scrip- 
tures, nor as applied in this manner to the peo- 
ple; but it was as nearly so as it was possible to 
apply it to mingled multitudes of people, good 
and evil. This is as near to equal justice as a 
multitude of people together would admit. It is 
the same on shipboard; large assemblies, good 
and bad, alike go down in the waters. Only natu- 
ral laws are at work, and some person or persons 
of their own accord have acted wrongly with them. 
So, when a storm sweeps the sea, it is purely by 
the laws of that particular realm of nature, while 
prevention and escape depend upon man's own 
exercise of his ingenuity in the construction of 
ships and in the management of them. In none 
of such cases does God interpose to cause extraor- 
dinary occurrences. It is, in all appearances, the 
working of the laws of these elements of nature, 
nature being only preserved and sustained by God 
in its course and in the effects it produces. But 
if by some extraordinary means some persons are 
saved through the providence of God, this would 
be an interposition, for by it the evils from nature 
and not from God had been overcome. The laws 
which start fires go on until some other elemental 
forces greater than they quench them. But if 
there were laws working in excess everywhere 
against fires, there could be none of the latter for 



18 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

good purposes ; and if the world were governed in 
every condition of things by an over-ruling 
Providence always exercising his goodness, then 
he only would start fires to do good and quench 
every fire that was doing harm. So, to be thor- 
oughly good to the world, he would become our 
real servant and assume the station of a menial, 
subject to the call of the indolent and careless. 
But every law he has made is as stable and endur- 
ing as the fabric of creation ; from everlasting to 
everlasting his laws endure; while every creature 
must accommodate himself to them. This is to 
be done by coinciding with every law, and by 
avoiding a false attitude toward it, so that the 
person may not be injured but benefited by its 
powers. 

Though accidents may happen, yet in all places 
and among all people they become less and less as 
the virtues of human nature increase, making us 
more obedient to laws and more diligent in ob- 
serving their operations and effects, good and 
evil. 

Suppose that we did not voluntarily regard the 
laws of nature as necessary to our welfare, and 
Providence ruled and over-ruled in all cases, as the 
false theory implies: what would be the conse- 
quence to mankind and the world itself ? Why, for 
the lack of exercise of essential life powers, man 
would be only a broken tool, with which the Lord 
has seldom worked satisfactorily to himself or to 
man: a deadly decline in all things would set out 



PREROGATIVE UNDER LAW 19 

like an ebbing tide, until the race of man became 
idiots and the world smothered with weeds 
and briars. And if Providence needs to prompt 
us, why not wait until he makes opportunity for 
us to work for good? Or why not, in fitting sub- 
mission, wait before we move at all, in order to see 
whether we are not about to run ahead of what 
Providence intends or is about to do? For thus, 
though tools we be, we can perversely writhe in 
the Master's hand and mar his work. 



CHAPTER THIRD 

THE TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 

" Read nature; nature is a friend to truth; 

Nature is Christian; preaches to mankind, 
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed." 

Young. 

I. UNIVERSAL LAW 

The true theory is that God rules creation ac- 
cording to and by the laws with which he endowed 
it, and that he interposes at intervals and only 
for the benefit of his creatures, never to hurt or 
injure any of them except when they oppose and 
trespass against his laws. Why, then, the trou- 
bled ones ask, did he allow such terrible recent 
calamities by fire? We would reply, first, that 
God being righteous and compassionate, it is im- 
possible that he should influence the evils to oc- 
cur; secondly, that he had committed all things 
long ago to laws that were always to govern 
them; thirdly, the people unfortunately exposed 
themselves to the perils, and the law of fire 
operated. God could not act contrary to the laws 
of the universe, — suspend or reverse a law neces- 
sary to the maintaining of the entire creation. 
He could not menace eternal duration in order to 
accommodate a state of things which is so soon 
to pass away. Therefore our constant reliance is 
20 



TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 21 

upon the laws of nature to work well for us when 
observed fully, and adversely when we omit to ob- 
serve them. 

In such conditions for our welfare, it is 
wrong to depend upon Providence, — just as it 
would be wrong, when our house is afire, to depend 
upon our prayers instead of upon our physical 
and mental exertions. All know this, yet they are 
prone to believe that which directly contradicts it. 



II. THE IMPOSSIBLE 

As it is impossible to prosper a multitude on a 
farm according to exact justice, because all would 
have to share alike, though unequally, in what 
they severally might merit, so when Providence 
made the harvests abound according to the Scrip- 
tural promise, he would need also to assort the 
good people out from the bad on the farm, and 
give each one his portion of the proceeds, or give 
the precise portion to each in some other valuable 
consideration. He never does this, so far as man 
can see, and if man cannot see it done, or know it, 
there would be no use in doing it; because this 
would not influence him to regard or obey God, as 
God keeps himself from being surely known in the 
transaction. 

If God assorted the meritorious from the blame- 
worthy in order to give each his proportion of 
the promised prosperity, then people could not be 
combined in multitudes without confusion and loss 



%% PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

to themselves and their earthly estate. So it 
appears that there are some conditions among 
men wherein certain things are quite conditional, 
and others impossible, from the very nature of 
the relations which prevail between things and 
men. In all such cases, Divine Providence does 
not pass over the boundary line which separates, 
by the laws of nature, the possible from the im- 
possible. This we know to be his habitual way; 
otherwise he only now and then works a miracle 
over and above these considerations, — and how 
rare have been such miracles, for even in answer 
to agonizing prayer a good man does not escape 
from the multitude who go down with the ships. 
Therefore a doctrine that declares that God gov- 
erns the world arbitrarily, and manages the causes 
of every small as well as great event and kills one 
or many as it may please him, is unreasonable 
and false. 



III. PROVIDENCE EXAGGERATED 

This false doctrine is founded upon a very 
magnificent but partial view of the nature of 
God, and seems to be made extravagant by the 
devotion of some people to his glory. That is to 
say, they consider the greatness of God in the 
most extreme degree. God is all, and in all, abso- 
lute, sovereign, without observing any conditional 
order or disorder of things. This is an error, be- 
cause he himself speaks of Satan changing 



TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 23 

things, and of human conduct causing him to 
change from condemning to approving whenever 
one turns from wrongdoing to welldoing. 

According to this error, they believe that every 
event, however small, comes to pass because God 
determined that it should, and manages so that it 
does occur, as if he, being in everything, crowded 
the thing out of itself or destroyed it within it- 
self, while he takes its place and does for it that 
which he had designed, at the first, that it should 
do of itself. Not so, for when you came from 
your chamber down to your breakfast, it was not 
God who descended the stairs and partook of re- 
freshment; it was you yourself, drawn by your 
own hunger and carried on your own feet and by 
your own strength, summoned by your own de- 
sires and independent will power. And if you 
slipped and fell down the stairs, if you overturned 
vessels of scalding fluids, it was all yourself as 
you felt, from head to feet, at the time. God 
was not in it, being too great to do such small 
things ; for his greatness must take care of itself 
against trifles unworthy of his majesty. 

A mosquito carried a fever germ to a man, and 
he died ; did God send that insect ? A little whirl- 
wind from the land, heated by the sun, overturned 
a boat, and several were drowned; did God raise 
that whirlwind and make a sport of human life, 
and send souls into eternity who were not pre- 
pared? A fool, for fun, rocks a boat on the lake, 
and it overturning, the young people in it are 



24 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

drowned in the midst of their days and family 
endearment; did God, through folly, overwhelm 
with terror and death those who were trusting in 
the common sense of an escort and companion? 
No! God was standing aloof while natural laws 
were operating the world and all that it contains ; 
he was preserving and sustaining the power of his 
laws. The avoidable accidents of the circum- 
stances entailed the disasters. 

Down among these little things, suitable to the 
powers of human beings, is where man himself is, 
as the providential hand to manage natural oc- 
currences for good and to prevent evils. Destroy 
malaria; control your boats against the whirl- 
winds; and abolish the fools from your pleasure 
parties. 



IV. PROVIDENCE MISUNDERSTOOD 

A righteous sovereign of a State promises to 
prosper his loyal subjects and to impoverish the 
disloyal ones. The behavior of each party hav- 
ing been completed, it is found that poverty is 
still the lot of the former, and prosperity that of 
the latter. Those who know the justice and be- 
nevolence of this sovereign do not declare that it 
is right for him to do as he may be pleased to do 
because he is the sovereign over the people, but 
they declare that in one way or another men mis- 
understood what he meant in those declarations, 
since he is too righteous to break a promise or to 



TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 25 

change its condition after it had been made 
known and men had complied therewith. But 
there are others who declare that there are no 
rights belonging to those who received the prom- 
ises which deserve to be respected, because all had 
been at some time rebels against him and had al- 
ready cost him so much care, trouble and loss that 
they had no right to the promises. However, he 
had the right to annul whenever it might be pleas- 
ing to him. In such a case, the most submissive 
citizen could be greatly perplexed, and would pro- 
test that there had been a great mistake, either 
by the sovereign himself or by those who had 
th ought that they had fully understood him. 
But when the truth was sifted out it was found 
that the rewards were to come out of correct as 
well as faithful work, as the same was applied to 
the productive resources of the fields and herds, 
from the sea and land. It was found, also, that 
many who had obeyed the law of fidelity to the 
ruler had been very deficient as to the work they 
were to do ; for grain that grows only out of the 
earth can never grow out of righteousness or good 
intentions; and obedience in farming the earth 
does not secure the rewards due prayer and wor- 
ship. So obedience must not stop at being submis- 
sive; in all material things in order to make obe- 
dience worthy of reward, it needs to be correct and 
accomplish the given object. It might not be so 
much when one tries to be good as it is when 
one would do what he undertakes; for certainly 



26 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

the Lord is pleased when, with a motion that 
might kill a man, you succeed in saving his im- 
perilled life. 

Thus there are so many varied conditions in 
the world by which we are affected and affect oth- 
ers, that it is not surprising that, as long as there 
are providences, men think them to be mysteries. 
However, if a man recognized the laws of na- 
ture, — always working in the same way, — and 
that God, being righteous and good, cannot do 
wrongly towards his creatures, the mystery dis- 
appears simply because God is not in events de- 
cidedly at variance with his character and dis- 
position. 

Christian peoples have held for centuries the 
belief that if God rules at all, his ruling must 
of necessity be, from the least atom to the great- 
est world, absolute. Inquiries into the ways of 
Providence have been silenced by the thought that 
to question this notion is to doubt the Scriptures 
or to encourage the beginning of rebellion against 
their Creator. Then again, seeing so many men 
of great piety and learning teaching that God 
does govern everything absolutely, and in one 
way or another does influence every event in our 
world, the multitude embrace and hold to this dis- 
tressing and amazing fallacy that has no appear- 
ance of being true, either as to cause and effect, 
the laws of nature, or the possibility of a good 
God, whose " goodness endureth forever," stand- 



TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 27 

ing behind the cloud of his glory, operating a 
machine of cruelty and death. 



V. SOURCE OF MISUNDERSTANDING 

" Previous learning, often overfed, 

Digests not into sense her motley meal." 



The unlearned might be moved to break loose 
from their fettered belief by recollecting that 
learned men hold opposite beliefs in ten thousand 
instances, and also in regard to providential acts 
of the Creator. They have their peculiarities, 
just as all others have. Some are notionate, and 
to them a notion is a fact; to some, what they 
prefer to be the fact, they believe; to others who 
admire grandeur, God is so far removed from 
men as to regard them as needing only discipline 
and chastisement ; still others believe that God be- 
ing a perfect sovereign, his attributes of right- 
eousness, goodness, and mercy are held in abey- 
ance to his authority, and hence he foreordains 
and causes, in all cases, whatever comes to pass. 

Now, men taking this standpoint and desiring 
to be consistent, find it necessary to believe in dis- 
asters, slaughters, sickness, otherwise avoidable, 
and deaths many years before the natural time, 
as having been so ordered and effected by Provi- 
dence. But in order to controvert that doctrine 
of men, we would now invite attention to the 



28 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

equalness of God's attributes and character; that 
is to say, his righteousness and goodness are equal 
to his sovereignty or authority, and hence his sov- 
ereignty could not influence the occurring of dis- 
asters, and especially those which overwhelm the 
righteous along with the unrighteous. 

In the times of contest by the heathen as to 
what god might be greatest or supreme, it was 
necessary that God should, by acts of absolute 
degree, show that he it was who was sovereign, 
and that there was no other god besides him him- 
self. And, too, the continual disregard of him 
by all people who were not Jews, including many 
of the Jews themselves, required a remedy strong 
and effectual. This only remedy would go for 
naught unless he struck to the heart and fears 
of the people. This he did, by such scenes as 
Mount Sinai, the destruction of Akan, of Belshaz- 
zar, of the army of the idolatrous Assyrians, and 
many other events ; but in all cases where severity 
was not necessary for compelling the loyalty of 
the people, these capital demonstrations ceased or 
abated accordingly. Those rebellious dispositions 
subsided as time passed on toward the dawn of the 
Gospel, and men became more reverential toward 
God, and regardful of his moral laws ; and the Di- 
vine severity was gradually replaced by more 
lenient and less frequent visitations of Providence. 
Again, the New Testament Dispensation is far 
less rigorous, and more placable, than the Old, or 
Mosaic, Dispensation. 



TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 29 

Two conclusions may be drawn from this mod- 
eration in the divine administration. The first 
is, that the meanings of Scripture passages may 
not always have the same force when applied to 
altered conditions or circumstances, since the atti- 
tude of God toward men is affected by their atti- 
tude toward him. 

The second conclusion is, that learned men, in 
forming their creed on Providence, have stood in 
the midst of the early ages, when God was called 
upon by the rebelliousness of the race to over- 
awe and subdue them by awful visitations; and 
from that standpoint, and by incidents and pas- 
sages of Scripture current throughout against the 
wicked and in favor of the righteous, they framed 
a creed of fatalism and cruelty in divine Provi- 
dence. This would have him to> disregard the 
laws of nature and righteousness, and represents 
him as promising safety to the righteous while he 
visits upon them the same evils and horrors that 
he might send upon the wicked. Thus they 
clothed the thought of God with terror; at the 
same time they must admit that if it was God who 
influenced the burning of the Opera House, and 
the Steamer " General Slocum," he did not regard 
the righteous above the wicked, nor anyone, what- 
ever his character or value to the world might be. 
They thus charge the carelessness of men to the 
acts of the adorable and merciful Saviour of men. 

Furthermore, the favorable promises which 
were made to the righteous of ancient times are 



30 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

not verified to these of modern times, to any de- 
gree comparable to those. The fields are not more 
productive for these; their flocks and herds are 
not "more profitable; nor they themselves and their 
families more secure from disease, violence, and 
death. 



VI. MODIFICATIONS 

The fulfillment of these promises was of the 
order of miracles, in times when needed for the 
instruction and correction of the people. As men 
became more intelligent and capable of operating 
with the laws of nature and of morals, and more 
faithful in doing so, Providence gradually 
adapted his administrations to these improved 
conditions among men, and in proportion to the 
instruction and manifestations which he had given 
of himself to the race; and in proportion to the 
moral and intellectual improvement of the pioneer 
nations, that form of miraculous government 
gradually ceased. It diminished until now the 
events in our world seem to have little, if any, con- 
nection with the moral retributions by which 
righteousness was wont to be rewarded, and wick- 
edness discouraged. No one may deny this in 
comparing ancient promises and threatenings with 
the infrequency of their application in these pres- 
ent times ; yet our opponents are as persistently, 
with misgivings, teaching the opposite dogmas as 
were the seers and prophets when the doctrine was 



TRUE THEORY OF PROVIDENCE 31 

emphatically applicable to those by whom God 
desired to be identified and acknowledged. 

This making of temporal rewards and penalties 
less applicable as improvement of mankind and 
the world goes on, sustains several divine purposes. 
One of these is, that he may not interpose wherein 
it is not necessary, that is, where one can help 
himself; and where one may become able to help 
himself, God will not ; where one can help himself 
and refuses, he will not help, but, rather, may in- 
terpose against him. For example : A man neg- 
lects his business and the laws of health, and 
may pray in misery against the consequences ; but 
as a universal habit, Providence does not hinder 
the praying, but indicates that the neglect of 
business and of health carried over his prayers a 
pall of disapprobation, and the man's business 
and health remain as if God had passed by him, 
and left him to the laws which the person had 
neglected. 



CHAPTER FOURTH 
IMPROVEMENTS AND PROVIDENCE 

I. ADAPTATION TO ENDS 

Improvement of the world and mankind cor- 
rects evils and increases good conditions, so that 
there are less evils to-day, and more good needing 
less of divine interpositions than ever before in 
the history of our world. Hence man does more, 
and Providence has that much less occasion. For 
example: Irrigation on American western plains 
makes less necessary showers and storms to water 
the earth, and it is more productive. So man is 
removing the necessity for certain divine inter- 
positions. Another consideration is, that as men 
became mellowed and fiducial, more persuasive 
means to secure their submission to the will of 
God were necessary. The Gospel of Jesus Christ 
would have been out of place, as well as out of 
timeliness, had it been presented instead of the 
Old Dispensation ; nor would it have been accepted 
by the people of that day. The reason for its re- 
jection would have been its incompatibility with 
the austerity of religious thought and customs 
of that time. The most trenchant need in re- 
ligion was subjugation of the people to God, 
and the only effectual way to accomplish it was 
that which Providence resorted to in appearing 
32 



IMPROVEMENTS AND PROVIDENCE 33 

through those events which would come with great- 
est force upon the temper of rugged peoples. A 
sturdy people cannot be won at once, if ever, by 
the show of refinement and the tenderness of con- 
cession. Earthquakes, and the heavens ablaze, 
and the voice of the Almighty, only secured their 
submission and devotion. This is the verdict of 
history throughout all generations. 

On the opposite hand, the terrors of Providence 
as a doctrine are not influential on human conduct 
in these fitter times for the goodness and mercy 
of God to appear. The Gospel, and the means 
of its proffers to human acceptance, are of the 
gracious order, and appeal to the tenderest sus- 
ceptibilities of our less depraved dispositions. 
Righteousness, goodness, and mercy of God are set 
before us in the Gospels much more than are ap- 
peals to our fears and to our spirit of resentment 
against punishment. 

So, in consequence of the foregoing conditions, 
the divine government, in order to be effectual, 
needs to be adapted to circumstances and human 
conditions. It may readily be seen, as already 
stated, that if the New and the Old Dispensations 
had been replaced by each other, the mildness of 
the former would not have suited the rugged 
characters of the dark antiquity; nor could the 
rigor of the Mosaic and pre-Mosaic times have 
been applied to our times with any hope of 
having such effects as Providence desires. 
Judging from the strongest natural conditions of 



34 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

mind and morals essentially ruling man's char- 
acter, it would have been necessary to interchange 
the modern and the ancient peoples. Then there 
would be a rear-march of all earthly things, and 
a march to the front of all things which Provi- 
dence has left behind, — the world going back 
into darkness, and the Christian church shifting 
from the truth in God into heathenism, from 
which it was appointed to deliver mankind. Even 
if Providence had put every race in such unfavor- 
able state, still they would have to be administered 
to according to the conditions, however peculiar 
they might be. This is a principle which abso- 
lutely requires accommodation to the laws, in 
order that it may be possible for them to be ef- 
fective. For example : Some nations are adapted 
only to a despotic government, and it would ef- 
fect their ruin through anarchy if, out of time 
and through their unfitness, they adopted a re- 
publican form. History abounds with illustra- 
tions of this application of law to the condition 
of objects to be governed. The heathen, when 
receiving the Gospel, are given such principles as 
they are most likely to accept, and those duties 
and truths which are hardest against their sensu- 
ality and domestic sins brought forth later. This 
is a common custom among missionaries in regard 
to polygamy. It is on the good commercial prin- 
ciple of adapting your controlling power to get- 
ting what concessions you can ; but do not expect 
to get all things at once when you meet with 



IMPROVEMENTS AND PROVIDENCE 35 

refusals, and do not kill because you may not 
cure at once — but still cure as you can. 

Now, the dispensations of God to mankind 
were all shaped and modified according to these 
principles. The people in olden time, not being 
capable of accepting and of being governed as 
they should be in later times, God withheld certain 
projects of law and government which they, not 
being able to receive, should know and regard in 
time to come. 

Thus, in the strictness of the Holy Scriptures, 
in the condition of nature, in the character and 
dispositions of mankind, and in providential deal- 
ings of God with all things in creation, there are 
but few concerning which the Almighty abso- 
lutely and unconditionally rules; but the vast 
train of events in our world, however much they 
may be promoted by many different causes, are 
all brought to pass by the steady push of law 
through devious ways, or through the straight- 
forward avenues of divine energy ; and when con- 
ditions and circumstances require new adaptations 
of law, he interposes to effect the needed accommo^ 
dation and reigns the supreme Ruler, not by acts 
of arbitrary assertion and destruction, as a false 
doctrine of men presumes. 



II. PROVIDENCE WITH LAW 

Moreover, our position is still more strongly 
sustained by the fact that each and every law 



36 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

bestows its own rewards consequentially and in- 
flicts its own penalties: one who commits murder 
is himself murdered by a variety of exasperated 
laws, such as that of conscience, of fear, of 
justice, and of God. A person neglecting the 
laws of health becomes diseased, pained, weak, 
and dying. On the opposite hand, after law- 
breakers have suffered the inevitable physical 
penalties of violation, they may be restored by 
the laws of life inherent and essential in every 
living creature; but the violated laws of right- 
eousness need the pardoning act of God. Any 
one who witnesses the healing of a wound, the 
curing of a disease, may see plainly that healing 
properties in our own bodies, and in medicines, 
act in them as properly as if they were weighed 
by the scruple, and directed to the disease by se- 
lective affinity. The efficiency, by adaptation, of 
the medicine to the particular disease, and the 
disease taking up the precise portion of medicine 
for its cure when unhindered and free, are sure 
evidences that these laws are appointed to effect 
the will of God, while he abstains from interpo- 
sitions except to sustain the action of the laws, 
or to accomplish some rare and special purpose. 
The course of the law is identical with that of 
Providence, and the miraculous works of God are 
his special providences — precious and terrible — 
and as rare in due proportion. But the error of 
the prevailing doctrine of Divine Providence is in 
believing that the miraculous events are habitual 



IMPROVEMENTS AND PROVIDENCE 37 

and exclusively God's method. On the other 
hand, the doctrine of Providential interpositions 
under the laws of creation they consider as an er- 
ror, even though it is by all appearances justified 
by the events which transpire before our own eyes, 
and in perfect harmony with the character and 
disposition which the Holy Scriptures declare to 
be peculiarly the attributes of the Creator. 

" Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,, but trust Him 

for his grace; 
Behind a frowning Providence he hides a smiling 

face." 

If Providence does not abstain from bringing 
certain evils upon his creatures, his righteousness 
and goodness cannot be understood according to 
the terms by which he declares them. If God 
brings calamities upon the good and wicked alike, 
as events do occur, then his actions contradict his 
promises. If he brings events to pass by sus- 
pending the operation of law, then he works a 
miracle, which he has done only once in a while, 
as the Scriptures clearly show. If he interposes 
without intermission, then no creature is free to 
act of itself, and nothing is what it seems to be. 
The following facts may illustrate the truth in 
each dilemma proposed above. 

As to the first. Every day there are thousands 
of cases of virtuous persons piteously suffering 
from wrongs, hunger, and disease, and dying off 
in agony ; yet of all these thousands scarcely a 



38 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

case is relieved or saved from death except by 
sanitary means applied according to sanitary laws 
through the benevolence and skill of the human 
race — and not at all by reversal of law as a 
miracle, as if laws needed to be supplemented by 
a special tropical impulse from the Creator. Not 
so : for when he had created all things — " very 
good " — he rested ; and the powers of nature 
and its laws went on to accomplish the works for 
which he had ordained and furnished them. 
Thus, obviously, the course of nature proceeds, 
presided over and not arbitrarily controlled by 
Providence. 

The second dilemma, wherein the unequal fates 
of the victims of conflagrations and wrecks seem to 
contradict the promises and threats of God, 
clearly shows that he was not in the causes of 
them, but that they were the results of malice, 
carelessness, ignorance, or weakness, as against 
other causes of the disaster. The agents causing 
or allowing the disasters were men free to do well 
or illy, or evil spirits to whom the Scriptures at- 
tribute all the woes from which our race suffers. 
Therefore God does not ordain these calamities; 
they are detested by him, as he is the author of 
all righteousness, and goodness, and is what he 
appears to be. 



CHAPTER FIFTH 

LAW AND PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSI- 
TIONS 

" Nature's self, which is the breath of God, 
Or His pure word by miracle revealed." 

Wordsworth. 

I. SELF-EXPRESSION 

A law governing any creature reciprocates the 
creature's nature and the operation of its powers ; 
so when we would identify the creature, having 
reference as to how much it does for itself and 
how much God does for its actions directly and 
presently, we need to consider that creature and 
the laws by which it exists and acts. Its tastes 
and appetites, being the expression of its nature 
and the requirements of its constitution and life, 
enforce their wants and desires by involuntary 
impulses of its organs, disposing the creature 
towards an unknown good. Thus it is that some 
species of animals feed exclusively on vegetation, 
and hence are less ferocious than others which 
subsist upon flesh and blood — the former need- 
ing only to browse, while the latter kills that it 
may live. It is furnished with a digestive organ- 
ism so fully suited to what its system requires to 
sustain it that it seems as if the Creator stood off 
after he had made that creature, and, seeing what 



40 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

its nature needed, had selected and made the same 
to match the one with the other. Everything 
was provided before the creature breathed or 
acted. Then the Creator may have said that the 
creature should bring forth according to its kind, 
as he did of the seeds of the trees and plants. 
When thus he had made and furnished the 
creatures for life and action, he must have said, 
" Go forth and do the things for which I have 
created you, and I will sustain you in times of 
weakness, and correct you against your faults in 
your mission." Now, the Scriptures do not say 
that this was the case, but, on the contrary, seem 
to teach that, in effect, this is just what the 
Creator did. This idea is sustained by all the 
feelings of a living creature, and its voluntary 
actions show it by motion whenever it wills to 
move, and by the involuntary movement of some 
of its organs, whether it be asleep or awake. 
Thus the law and the creature are completely re- 
spondent to each other, and operate up to the 
measure of all that the creature contains, and 
hence need only opportune divine interpositions. 

Thus, in whatever way God may act upon the 
creature to effect its motions, it is plain that the 
creature habitually acts of itself, and God influ- 
ences it when occasion may require, according to 
his good pleasure. If, therefore, God is good, 
he did not influence a child to play in the stream, 
that it might slip into it and drown; he did not 
prompt the untidy mother to spare the brush and 



PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS 41 

leave germs of disease in her home to bring sick- 
ness and death to her family; he did not make 
business for the physicians and gravediggers by 
tempting a daughter to disobey her parents and 
follow giddy fashion with light apparel, to invite 
and then unwillingly yield to the death touch of 
influenza or consumption ; he did not influence the 
criminal to fire the barn, the home, and the public 
institution, but he said, " Thou shalt not kill " 
and " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 



II. LIMITATIONS NATURAL 

The effect of any power is limited by the con- 
dition of the object upon which it is exerted. A 
dead body is incapable of being affected by reme- 
dies that would have been effectual while the body 
was alive. So, as this is a principle throughout 
creation, we can but conclude that divine influ- 
ences are modified, limited, and sometimes with- 
holden, because of prevailing circumstances. 

If we apply this law of divine procedure with 
less qualification, we shall find that it holds good. 
For example, a person's actions are less powerful 
when the human system has been weakened, and 
stronger when the faculties are more vigorous; 
therefore, if God is directly the power by which 
we act, then surely his power in us should not 
fail because we have become stronger or weaker. 
But if our ability is in ourselves, then, of course, 
we are proportionately weak when sick, and 



42 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

strong when well. How vain it would seem to 
suppose that the Almighty became weak when our 
feebleness lay in the way of his strength, or that 
he succeeded best when abetted by our good 
health. And yet, unless the acts of Providence 
are modified and limited in the manner declared 
above, it cannot be his powers, but must be our 
own, because it is we who change between strength 
and weakness. 

If God habitually manages human actions, as 
is erroneously supposed, then he would be the 
instigator to acts of vice and disorder, as well 
as the promoter of all righteousness ; and unless 
he acts in both ways it is entirely erroneous to 
attribute to his influence only such events as are 
strictly square with his righteousness and flush 
with his goodness. Moreover, if God controlled 
human actions, then he would be the author of 
all the evil for which he reprobates and con- 
demns men. He would be subverting his own 
moral attributes, and relieving man of responsi- 
bility in reference to keeping holy his command- 
ments. Still more; this virtual substitution of 
himself in the stead of his creatures would prac- 
tically deny men's accountability and ignore con- 
science and all other affections of righteousness 
and religion, while these properties of man, by 
lack of use, would waste away, leaving nothing 
of him but his physical frame and animal ap- 
petites. Thus, in a degraded moral and physical 
condition, he would be reduced to a fit state for 



PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS 43 

an absolute providential control for which our op- 
ponents contend: the more of sin, the less of 
man; the more of true man, the less of provi- 
dential interpositions. 



III. PHYSICAL REGULATION 

The ability of a living creature to perform 
all individual acts indicates harm if those per- 
formances should be interrupted or supplemented 
by interpositions; in like manner, so soon as rest, 
sleep, and nourishment become excessive above 
healthy requirements, decay commences. To 
maintain the health of living creatures the Cre- 
ator has given to them a relish and desire for 
their food, and for general bodily welfare; so 
that, indeed, as there are automatic mechanical 
contrivances, so in a stronger sense man is such 
a machine. If, therefore, any being should in- 
terpose at variance with the natural habits of this 
human apparatus, to estop or force its functions, 
it would be unwholesome, and in course of time 
transform it into another kind of creature, or else 
work out its entire destruction ; but if the creature 
may have taken an unwholesome course, and in 
violation of its own nature and the purposes of 
the Creator in regard to it, then the interposition 
of any being becomes necessary and fully war- 
ranted — but no farther than to restore that 
creature to its natural condition. Herein occa- 
sional interpositions of Divine Providence have 



44 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

their allotted sphere, and are suitable to the laws 
of physical life and the occasions of its growth 
and improvement. 

The sources of life having been deposited in 
every living thing, the incentive and motive force 
for action is in the creature, and not in the direct 
and present act of God on that creature. The 
Creator has made imperative and self-acting all 
the faculties, organs, and wants of the living 
creature, so strong that at times they need to be 
restrained; and if not restrained, intemperate ac- 
tions follow, injurious to the creature, and dan- 
gerous in outward circumstances. 



IV. ACTING WITH PROVIDENCE 

In suitableness to these self-acting motives and 
longings, the Creator has made earth and heaven 
beautiful and attractive to every desire of mind 
and flesh. Here are objects all over earth and sky 
which excite the mind, as it examines sea and 
land, the planets, and the vast plentitude of the 
heavens beyond. There are throughout creation 
sufficient treasures to employ all human powers. 
There is also, evidently, a straightforward, posi- 
tive purpose of the Creator, having matched the 
powers of man with the deeds and improvements 
which this world needs. There is no time or 
place for diverting man's actions from this pur- 
pose; there are only those occasions for divine 
interpositions, as to this world, which the er- 



PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS 45 

rancy and wickedness of the race supply. While 
the punitive visitations by the hand of God are 
very infrequent, general calamities are quite com- 
mon, and those who work together with God are 
involved in them, in common with the wicked. 
This indicates that the disorders of nature and 
living creatures are to be abolished by the deeds 
of the entire race, devoted — or needing to be- 
come so — to the purpose of God in improving 
and perfecting the world. Again: we may de- 
clare that while there is insufficient devotion 
among men to effect this divine purpose, there is 
also an inadequacy of population to effect the 
same. This lack of devotion needs to be remedied 
by the missionary spirit, which the Redeemer en- 
joined upon his followers in special regard to the 
Gospel, and, of course, to the general condition 
of mankind in other respects, which look to the 
righteousness and welfare of mankind; but in all 
these projects and improvements God is not work- 
ing miracles, nor leading us so much by special 
providential interpositions, as he is waiting upon 
us to move up to the opportunities with the ir- 
repressible activities of our natures, when he will 
open ways for our hearty interposition against 
obstructions. 



V. PROVIDENCE AND MAN 

There are no men to spare, except inveterate 
enemies to the welfare of the world. The Lord 



46 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and 
surely not in that of those who serve him. Why, 
then, should he interpose with slaughter and the 
most awful terrors, removing at a stroke the good 
and the bad? The sufficient answer to this anx- 
ious question is, that it is as inapplicable as if 
one were to inquire why Satan and man had pre- 
vented such calamities, and from the flames had 
rescued the good and innocent. 

The correct answer is, that the avoidable ig- 
norance, neglect, and selfishness of mankind are 
chiefly to be blamed ; for the failure of means for 
avoiding sickness, accidents, and violence are not 
examined and known as they might be, by 
creatures so much exposed as every one of the 
race is. But a few besides occasional specialists 
know how the influenza is most likely to be taken, 
or how it may be cured ; they do not seem to know 
any more about themselves than if they could be 
another person carelessly looking in upon them- 
selves. They can lay the hand upon the place 
that pains, but they cannot tell what organ is 
involved. A woman who sews for a livelihood 
knows all parts of her machine, but her body, 
where her life lives or dies, may be indifferently 
considered as a food eater and a clothes wearer, 
while the nature of diseases in the body, and their 
remedies, need to be better understood. 

So another person, yielding to his seemingly 
innocent relish for food, eats immoderately at 
times and suffers spells of sickness. Another, im- 



PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS 47 

pelled by an appetite, ready day or night for 
food, having the habit of continuous feeding, and 
always to an uncomfortable fullness, contracts 
dispepsia and lives miserably, and probably dies 
from so-called heart failure, but really by heart 
crowding, from the associate, overloaded organs. 
Another, by unnecessary delay at home, barely 
makes the train, and by misstep slips beneath the 
wheels. Another, by lack of good words, and with 
an abundance of bad ones, has a violent conflict 
and suffers from bodily harm, an expensive suit at 
law, and enmity between the families, long and 
bitter. 

Now, the woman with the sewing machine may 
have become nervous in trying to adjust the 
needle, and thrusts a finger under it: the wound 
may result in blood-poisoning, if she may have 
been impure in her physical condition through 
ignorance or sanitary neglect. Or, by mere 
chance, it may have been otherwise, and the injury 
soon heals. In the latter case the people would 
call it a mere trifle, with no providential signifi- 
cance; in the former instance they would call it 
the act of Providence, simply because in the one 
case nothing dreadful had resulted, and in the 
other, because of the accident of having impure 
blood, blood-poisoning and death were the avoid- 
able consequences. Now, as to the occasion of 
the wound: it lay between the machine and the 
wants which were supplied by its use. The feel- 
ing of need and the nervousness arising from a 



48 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

desire to get at work promptly were the only 
causes of the wound, and only a fitting result of 
human frailty. 

In the case of premature death from surfeiting 
or gluttony — of which the cases are so numer- 
ous — we can easily see how a child, pampered 
by its mother's fondness and indiscretion, would 
prefer sweetmeats to substantial food, and how 
the presence of the former would excite its desires, 
and how the mother yielded when her petted boy 
cried and pouted, and how he hovered around the 
cupboard and ate much between meals. These 
were the weak and trifling substitutes for a whole- 
some and restraining discipline, which twenty or 
thirty years afterward gave occasion for the 
newspapers to publish the death of A. B. from 
heart failure, caused by a spell of acute indiges- 
tion, beginning simply by a mother's indiscretion 
and ending only through the strength of an in- 
ordinate appetite. 

Another recklessly challenges accidental condi- 
tions and the stern laws of force and mechanics, 
and dies a mass of ground flesh, away forty years 
this side of the seventy to which he might have 
lived. The habit of putting things off and rush- 
ing to make up lost time, or maybe the endear- 
ments of home, caused him to delay his departure 
to make the train, and may account to man and 
Providence for his too early end. But away 
back where no one suspected, the primary causes 
were operating in trivial circumstances. When 



PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS 49 

he loved anything it was in opposition to some 
better things or interests which commanded his 
first attention. At school he loved his ball better 
than his books, his playmates before his duties, 
and personal safety. This spirit is very natural : 
so it is for the colt to break his halter ; but broken 
halters are the first pages to a history of dis- 
appointments and shortened life. This boy was 
told to go for bread, as dinner was ready ; he said 
he would, after he got through with what he was 
doing to please himself. His mother said: 
« Very well, dear," and the dinner waited. The 
father came and waited while he watched to see 
how fast his son could run to make up lost time, 
and smiling, said to his wife, " What a smart boy 
our John is." About twenty years thereafter 
Johnny was making up lost time, when he slipped 
and fell under the wheels of the cars. The only 
cause of this fatal occurrence was the foolish 
fondness and lack of firm and profitable discipline 
by those who loved him most. All the Providence 
that influenced the course and end of this person 
was demoralizing and insidiously cruel, and com- 
ports only with the weaknesses of human caprice 
and folly. 

In the case of the violent man who injured his 
fellow man and left a heritage of hate and con- 
flict with neighbors — the sources of his disposi- 
tion were quite human and controllable by common 
sense and regard for good feeling between people. 
He may have been the son of sensitive and lively 



50 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

parents ; he was as quick to affectionate as resent- 
ful feelings. When he heard the bleating of the 
sheep, the cry of a bird, or even the squeal of a 
hated cat, he rushed out to save them. When his 
father was harsh with him, he burned with indig- 
nation ; when his mother scolded, he ceased to love 
and began to hate her; when his older brother 
domineered over him, he suddenly passed from 
praying to swearing; when a neighbor boy be- 
rated any of his family, even the older brother, 
he burst with eloquent profanity and jumped into 
the middle of the road. As he grew up into man- 
hood his father continued to be harsh, lus mother 
to scold, his older brother to domineer, and his 
neighbors' boys to tantalize. Thus the quick af- 
fections of a generous lad were met by evil in- 
fluences instead of good, and the faculties which 
would develop him into a loving companion and 
a heroic defender of the helpless and oppressed 
only swelled out and made a passionate, quarrel- 
some, fighting* law-breaker, and perhaps a mur- 
derer. This case, in the beginning, arose from a 
slight warmth of temperament — a pivotal point 
in his treatment — and a useless continuance of 
provocation up into his manhood. The father 
could say, as he realized the consequences, that it 
might have been quite the reverse with the son 
and with the entire family, had he not given way 
to petty outdoor annoyances, and been kindly and 
not harsh. The mother sees now that she should 
not have found fault when things went wrong by 



PROVIDENTIAL INTERPOSITIONS 51 

accident, as when by carlessness or intention. In 
decency and justice she should have only men- 
tioned and tried to correct the wrong, and always 
have commended what was done rightly — but 
she kept on scolding. She may have stopped 
long enough when she had to say a short prayer 
within the hearing of the Lord, or against bur- 
glars or stormy nights or censorious neighbors; 
but there was one large wave of consciousness that 
said that she need not have scolded her boy into 
a churl or criminal, since his feelings were natu- 
rally open to good impressions and noble purposes. 
That older domineering brother, having now to 
help to pay for the lawsuit or to bail his brother 
out of prison and try to cover the disgrace, la- 
ments his empty purse, and feels that he could 
have readily treated his brother kindly, and now 
have had more money. 

But whatever of ridiculous irony may attend 
this case, it is to be seen plainly that divine 
Providence could have no part in spoiling this 
fair specimen of humanity, any more than a 
builder could waste material, or the sculptor break 
to pieces the marble block for the noblest statue, 
or the manufacturer change apparatus for the 
best of fabrics, to the making of compounds with 
which to blow up town or city. 



CHAPTER SIXTH 

INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 

" From nature's constant or eccentric laws, 
The thoughtful soul this inference draws: 
That an effect must presuppose a cause." 

Prior. 
" Great are thy works Almighty — And if they so 

great, how great 
Art thou who hidest thyself behind the gorgeous 
scene, sustaining all." 

E. Otherman, 

I. HUMAN FRAILTIES 

In the beginning of things, God's will and 
power were exerted in absolute manner. But 
since nature began to move, as a swarm of activi- 
ties, agreeing and disagreeing, colliding and 
glancing, competing and quarrelling, the con- 
junctions, the conflicts of their manifold natures, 
have set the habits of their procedures in a state 
which makes some actions and events conditional 
or accidental or contingent one thing upon its 
critical relation to another. This is the fashion 
of our world since its creation, it would seem. 
For example : A certain food agrees with one per- 
son, but disagrees with another, according to their 
respective conditions, and may be life to the one 
and death to the other. Again, one man may be a 
52 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 53 

bitter enemy of another, contingent upon the re- 
lation which has obtained on the settling up of an 
estate or other diverse interests between them, and 
may result in moral degeneration; for no one 
knows how much a fight for justice may damage 

— in a man — the foundations of righteousness. 
The laws of God are the strength of creation; 

they stand firm, and change not. When a per- 
son, by lack of caution or by presumption, comes 
up against a law of nature, an accident occurs, 
and the man is hurt. Accidents are very frequent 

— a fit counterpart to the heedlessness of man — 
and certainly are not an effort of Providence to 
disarrange the regular order of things and injure 
his beautiful handiwork. Providence would have 
it quite otherwise, rather than to have his laws 
tempted and challenged. So if he interposes at 
all in such cases, it would be to remedy these li- 
abilities to which the integrity of his laws is ex- 
posed. The stability of his laws is in inverse pro- 
portion to the frailties of man. 



II. ABSOLUTE, AND CONDITIONAL 

In creating and establishing the universe, 
Providence was absolute : in governing creation — 
it having been disturbed by disorders — God rules 
according to its changeful conditions. From the 
beginning to the end, all things are controlled by 
law, but conditions are the incidents of disorder 
and progress. Keeping the law removes disorders 



54 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

and modifies conditions, and, while requiring 
providential interpositions, leaves less and less oc- 
casion for them. 

The creation of nature was a dispensation of 
God, by and for himself, unconditional and eter- 
nal. The government of creation is a dispensa- 
tion, in reference to the vicissitudes, and looking 
to the restoration of nature, from an inferior to a 
superior condition, by the agency of every creat- 
ure through the adjustments which man could 
effect between the operating forces of creation. 
Thus, man would produce, after a first effect, a 
better one at the second ; and Providence — inter- 
ested in his creation — interposing, would pro- 
mote the goodly efforts of his only agents on 
earth. Thus it is seen that a gradual improve- 
ment indicates that the controlling agency is fi- 
nite, and that the conditions of improvement in 
anything are limited by the nature of that thing, 
and the circumstances through which the improve- 
ment is made — and all is more suggestive of 
finite effort than of the infinite. 

For several hundred years, for example, our 
southern sea coast and the West India Islands 
were ravaged by the yellow fever. Prayers as- 
cended from churches and from homes that were 
being made desolate; and, indeed, all the services 
with which God is most pleased and most influ- 
enced were observed, and yet no hand, no help 
seemed to come. God was not pleased to inter- 
pose between man and the benefits his agency 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 55 

should effect. But when this false dependance 
upon Providence was removed and a remedial sys- 
tem of sanitation was instituted, that fearful mal- 
ady began to decrease, and disappeared as this 
purely human agency proceeded. Those cen- 
turies of disease and death calling so loudly for 
deliverance, at last were heard by the Lord; but 
the answer tarried until he could effect it by the 
willing interposition of men. 



III. PROVIDENCES OBVIATED 

The self-acting forces of life obviate providen- 
tial interpositions. This is because life and ac- 
tion begin by the coming together of the elements 
which make up or compose the creature. In such 
cases, God had previously provided that it should 
be so; and because of this provision, when the 
elements which come together to compose a 
creature, its life and powers begin with itself. 
Accordingly, its actions are controlled by its 
own nature and varied by its circumstances. 
First the creature ; then the circumstances to cause 
it to act in one way or another. And whether it 
be man or animal, it is in itself free, and meeting 
with help or with opposition, it is able at some 
time to have its own way, whether it be helped or 
hindered: so that when its conduct is right it does 
not need any extraneous aid to make it so; and 
when it is wrong the consequences of the wrong 
largely obviate the necessity of providential rec- 



56 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

tification thereafter. Thus the manner in which 
God made and organized his creatures declares 
the fact by the conditions of things. So Provi- 
dence may or may not interpose. Thus certain 
conditions may affect both the nature of a 
creature, and also the frequency or infrequency 
of providential interpositions. 

The foregoing principles in creation accord with 
the greatness of God, and are supported by the 
manner in which nature exhibits her operations 
to our observation. On the contrary, the present 
belief that Providence proceeds by continuous ex- 
ertions upon all things is rebuked by the opera- 
tions of nature in all its manifestations; for 
everything seems to act from itself and by the 
influence of natural objects upon it, which objects 
meantime are subject to the superiority of the 
acting creature. We may find the same grounds 
for obviation of providential interpositions in the 
make-up of the minds and dispositions of different 
persons. For example, we find every child in a 
family peculiar in some way; one child prefers 
one thing, another a different thing. No train- 
ing can alter the peculiarity : it can only control 
or may modify it somewhat. This condition of 
the child is clearly the product of the nature of 
the elements of which it was composed and formed 
before it was born. Thus it will, and does, act in 
its own way. Its state and conditions in after 
life, and indeed no matter what happens to it, 
may accord with the direction in which its own 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 57 

peculiar disposition takes it. We may see clearly 
that, comparing what may occur or happen to 
it from its own peculiar disposition with what 
may seem to be providential, Providence has less 
to do with it than it has to do with itself; so, 
whatever may be its condition and conduct, good 
or bad, it was more from itself than from provi- 
dential influence. So it appears that the creature 
acts continuously in its own way, and that God 
interposes only from time to time. 

The reader may readily observe that the word 
" interpose " as used by our opponents admits 
that the Creator has ordained that nature should 
run on according to its trend in all things, while 
he interposes occasionally. We repeat that God 
first created the elements of which all things are 
composed, and made the destiny of each creature 
to depend upon itself more than upon any ar- 
bitrary power that he might exert. So he gave 
to each its substance and lif e, and endowed it with 
ability to transmit them; and thus, while the 
creator sustains all the creatures he has made, the 
power of life and action is in the essence and com- 
position of the creature, and in fact, proceeds in 
continuous succession. They are started upon 
any object by the affections or feelings in it, 
which are excited by the need of supplies to pre- 
serve it from decay and sustain its powers. Thus 
life and action proceed effectually from the facul- 
ties of the creature, affected by its sensibilities: 
hunger and thirst, heat and cold, fear and cour- 



58 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

age, love and hate, pleasure and pain, labor and 
rest; and every feeling has its organ and faculty 
for producing all kinds of actions for which the 
vast and varied universe could give occasion, and 
in nice proportion to the degree of attraction or 
repulsion in any of the objects, is the definite and 
quick movement of aversion or attraction by the 
beast, animal, or man, in all these conditions of a 
being, among the vicissitudes of its life. In the 
bodies of all emotional creatures, from lowest 
vegetation up to man, there are irrepressible 
forces continuously operating, such as that of 
nutrition and assimilation into the body of food 
substances in quite dissimilar condition from the 
bodies of whose composition they become a part; 
and by their essential properties they rebuild 
wasted and wounded tissues and restore lost power. 
So efficient and essential is this property in nature 
that it cannot be arrested except by the destruc- 
tion of the body, or by some special application of 
divine power. Thus the Creator may appear to 
us still greater than we could imagine; and in a 
manner quite aside from what men had conjec- 
tuied, as they wrongly estimated his character and 
purposes. And now, since the fall of man and 
the prevalence of a Saviour, God presides rather 
than dominates, and delights in the office of men 
and means which may obviate many interpositions 
which a disordered world might require. 
" In contemplation of created things, 
By steps we may ascend to God." 

Milton. 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 59 

IV. INSTRUCTIVE PROPERTIES 

Thus it is that living creatures, and those of 
lower order, are furnished on the one hand with 
faculties with which they may utilize all they 
can enjoy, and on the other hand the same facul- 
ties revolt against an excess of the good, clear 
themselves of impurities, and clamor for nourish- 
ment and external remedies specific for their sev- 
eral ailments. 

These modes of sustentation and healing are 
forced upon the bodily system by its demands for 
health, life, and happiness; not only so, but this 
force cannot be successfully resisted except by 
violence to the organs or body. Thus the animal 
is controlled by its sensibility and the instinct of 
self-preservation, and, desiring relief, it then se- 
lects its certain remedy, accordingly as its in- 
stincts are normal. When man is normal, not 
instinct but reason may effect what instinct does 
in the animal. The movements of instinct in the 
animal are involuntary, while the reason of man 
is spontaneous and free. The animal is driven to 
its remedies by internal distress; man may suffer 
and neither care for nor know his remedy except 
by study and investigations and consequent dis- 
covery effected only by his spirit of enterprise and 
humanity, which arise from his essential and pecu- 
liar constitution. 

The organs of the body, when in health, have 
the same functions operating as in an unhealthy 



60 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

state ; they yearn for nourishment by hunger and 
thirst ; and employing the properties of chemistry 
they select from a mixed mass the nutritive ele- 
ments and reject the unsuitable. Then, continu- 
ing the process, they convert these agreeing 
elements into their own flesh and bones. This 
power is the veritable expression of the essence 
and united energy of the filaments, ligaments, 
veins, vessels and nerves which thrill all, even 
against the will of the person. These organs 
operate without command and in spite of the will, 
the affection, passion, or the opposition of the 
entire creature. The would-be suicide who de- 
sired to die of emaciation, never even dreams of 
stopping the work of nutrition and assimilation 
of food ; but he shuts off the supply of nutriment 
and refuses to eat. He knows right well that 
these imperious feeders of the body give a nega- 
tive to all influences adverse to the services of life, 
which they were qualified to render, and never 
cease except by famine or violence. 



V. SPONTANEOUS FACULTIES 

Nutrition and assimilation are the more fa- 
vorable to those foods which agree best with the 
body of the creature, and they reject those which 
may be injurious. It is not a mere inability to 
digest certain foods, but also a sympathy between 
the organs of digestion and the constitution 
(diathesis) of the body which causes the former 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 61 

to reject those foods which would be injurious to 
the latter. Thus it would seem that the Creator 
has established in every creature an apparatus 
which is so responsive to its food-wants, and so 
discriminating in rejecting the bad and appropri- 
ating the good, that this machinery must have 
been created and arranged to operate of itself by 
virtue of the Creator's purpose. It starts and 
stops without the influence of the creature, and 
if it start and stop of itself, why would not such 
an endowment of power be as consistent with the 
majesty of the God-head as if it depended for 
motion on continuous exertions of divine power 
upon it? Well, whatever men may conjecture 
as to the methods of the efficient power which con- 
trols its functions, it seems, by all appearances, 
as if it operates according to its construction, and 
by its own energies, sustained by the abiding pres- 
ence of the Creator. Nevertheless, if the being 
and powers of the creature are sustained and ef- 
fected by the direct and continuous application of 
divine energy, Providence would have no more 
occasion for interposing than if all the energy 
were essentially in the creature. 



VI. CARE AND ITS RESULTS 

The precise results which are derived from a 
punctilious care in conforming to any law, sug- 
gest man's extensive prerogatives and account- 
ability therefor. If man goes beyond the laws 



62 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

of nature or would attempt to apply them beyond 
their limit, he meets in each case with an evil re- 
sult. That is, when he goes beyond the law he 
may get plunder, which will hurt him somewhere 
else than where he thought it would do him good ; 
just as he who kills is hurt by fear of penalty or 
by the censures or decay of his conscience. When 
one breaks the law he may find it as a vindictive 
magistrate who punishes in order to defend him- 
self, and reduce the power of wrong thereafter; 
but in every case it is a free human being, or 
other evil agency. Surely no good angel could 
invade man's liberty and become worse than he, 
and how could our righteous Heavenly Father do 
any otherwise than to enforce those penalties 
against uninfluenced criminals? 

When people live beyond law their desires have 
been larger than their capacities, and the world 
appeared to them larger than their accountabil- 
ity; and in this, if they might not be actual law- 
breakers, they are at least violators of the order 
of nature and the divine economy over this world. 
This course of life is too trivial, and its conse- 
quences too serious, to have been promoted by 
Providence. Its faults are commonly rebuked by 
some supposedly humiliating interference of 
Providence, by repulsions in our natures against 
it, such as disgust and satiety, the conscious ab- 
sence of a better course of life, disappointed love 
of the world, and the consequent unavailing clamor 
of tastes and habits of life for its return, and 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 63 

power to enjoy it wasted away by excess or 
disease; and last, by death, which is the more 
dreadful the more the world has been loved — a 
vain, excessive, and commonly a short life, in 
keeping only with such frivolities and the audacity 
of a creature who realizes neither the sacredness 
of hours wasted nor of eternal laws disregarded. 

Such an one intensifies his faults as the course 
of life proceeds; he desires more and more, and 
wearies of the one thing he desired, desiring an- 
other not so much because it is another, but 
because it affords him a variety of the same thing. 
The reader will readily think of the chief sacred 
relation in the family which is thus violated, and 
domestic peace and prosperity destroyed. This 
is only one example of many in other directions, 
and suggests how the voluntary and self-begotten 
desires cause one to live against law and persuade 
the natural impulses to violate it, as one sur- 
renders to vagrant impulses, or by dissatisfaction 
with what he now has or by picturing to himself 
what he would like to secure, his virtues weaken 
and his faults strengthen. Idleness he would call 
rest, and vices, innocent gratification. To him 
labor is slavery, and economy, unnecessary self- 
denial. And he himself unhindered has done it 
all. 

If any one would consider all that is contained 
in a human being, he would have to think of a 
factory with a capability of making all kinds of 
fabrics — shoddy and pure wool, unbleached or 



64 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

bleached, with a dubious character in the sorting 
room and the engine managed either by caprice or 
good judgment. He has leased the machine from 
a mighty owner, and within his ability he does as 
he pleases because he himself is important enough 
to be accountable for damages, though he cannot 
repair them. Now, in a few years we usually find 
this kind of person avoided, in want, or com- 
mitting crime, or dying in disgrace ; or if not so 
bad, at least of little good to the world, a social 
nuisance, and in the way. It would be quite dis- 
courteous to say that Providence influenced a man 
or family to such unwholesome ways, and to pro- 
cure for themselves such variegated characters, 
such devious and enervating courses of living, and 
ending in a manner alien to everybody, and to the 
intention of their Creator. The truth is that 
minds and morals controlled the very capable 
power of all their faculties, and they ignored law 
and order because they wilfully inclined them- 
selves toward the wrong rather than toward the 
easy, open way to the right. We hear God's 
word reproving, and see and feel nature rebuking 
and finally turning against them. 

Then again, any particular course of life con- 
tinued becomes a habit. It is said that habit be- 
comes second nature ; it becomes more than this : 
indeed, it reverses nature in some faculties, and 
changes the system in some instances so much that 
a person may subsist for a while, on stimulants 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 65 

and narcotics, better than on natural nourish- 
ment. 

VII. PROVIDENTIAL HELP 

There are persons whose reformation back to 
healthful habits requires much more than the 
strongest resolutions and helpful circumstances. 
They have now to contend against a nature, 
though a false one, and hold on bravely while they 
wear out the latter and establish themselves in the 
former. The evil conditions in such a case are 
the individual's own work, without God; but in 
his reformation, while his part is to wear out the 
false habit, it is the part of God to help, and 
sometimes to make the entire change for him, " in 
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye " ; but this 
" goeth not out by by fasting and prayer." 
Providence may interpose. 

" Habits are soon assumed, but when we strive 
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive." 

Cowper. 

So, as to good results proceeding from correct 
habits, the process is as natural and human, and 
by one's free and personal conduct, as in form- 
ing evil habits. The spectacle is beautiful to be- 
hold, when from his innate low tendencies, or 
from bad habits, one arises and calls into service 
his better parts and purposes, and by courage and 
loyalty breaks the siege and drives away his in- 



66 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

ward and outward opposers; and such an one is 
worthy the praise, as under the goodly helps and 
conditions of this age of grace he holds his privi- 
lege of successfully helping himself, and thanks 
God for the grace that made it possible for Adam 
and his posterity to lay hold on nature within 
and without and do something with it by their 
own exertion, receiving direction and help from 
Providence whenever they should be willing and 
submissive to receive, and also incurring rebukes 
and judgment from him by the laws of nature, 
and by his direct interpositions where nature 
might fail or his moral law and purposes might 
require his interference. 

Thus, by the gracious provisions for Adam 
after his fall, — putting strength in him and ren- 
dering him responsible by making his duties pos- 
sible by his own powers, thus accommodated, — 
are the true principles of government observed. 
So it seems that when men say that we cannot 
commence any good deed without the prompting 
and enabling of the Holy Spirit, they should 
rather say that we could not make such effort had 
not God in Christ (redemption) put the nature, 
the powers of man, the atmosphere of all things, 
in such a state of relief as to make it possible for 
man to act at the beginning of anything — from 
his own voluntary impulses, by the solicitation of 
supply external to himself, and craving of want 
within himself — to start and continue all exer- 
tions, both good and evil; but not until the gra- 



INFLUENCES WITH PROVIDENCE 67 

cious Lord chooses does the Holy Spirit prompt 
or enable man to do the good he could do or 
would not do. This is a method following the 
state of enabling grace; it operates specially and 
by occasion, in correspondence and coincident 
with God's method of providential interposition. 
It can scarcely elude the notice of any observer 
that all the foregoing conditions and actual 
operations correspond with natural order in the 
equipment and work of the entire creation, ani- 
mate and inanimate. 



VIII. HEREDITY NOT PROVIDENTIAL 

The causes of hereditary traits and their effects 
are also derived from pre-existing and inert con- 
ditions accidental in their origin, cause of action, 
and result. These are in the nature of things, 
and produced by the spontaneous operations of 
nature. They exist in hidden recesses, in un- 
seen essences, in impalpable elements of power, 
and produce their effects quickest and strongest 
where there is most of animation. So, living 
parents are seen one or the other in one child, and 
as plainly both parents are seen in the same child. 
In the formation of the being, how very slight 
and delicate are the conditions which produced 
these results just named. Sometimes a sickly 
parentage on both sides, by compatibility of 
some vital element, transmits health to its de- 
scendants; at other times a healthy parentage, 



68 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

by certain hidden elements of incompatibility of 
constitution, procreated a family of weaklings. 

By cause purely animal and voluntary, a 
parent imbues his faculties with stimulants for 
a time, and sometimes when he assumes parent- 
age. The prevailing state of his person at that 
time is apt to become the dominant element, good 
or bad, in the propensities of the descendant. 
In this way great, low, mixed, and trifling traits 
may become incorporated into the stock of a fam- 
ily. Did they originate in some purpose of 
Providence? If so, what can we say concerning 
the dignity and greatness of those acts which led 
to the birth of so many unfit, unworthy and law- 
less persons into our world, whom God would re- 
claim and reduce into loyalty to himself? And 
yet, when these natural causes and accessory influ- 
ences culminate in some great calamity or crime, 
it is habitually declared as a mysterious visitation 
of Providence! 



CHAPTER SEVENTH 
PROVIDENCE AND NATURE 

I. BASIS OF AGREEMENT 

Providence may interpose when nature goes 
wrong, or is liable so to do. This is manifested 
as the chief and infrequent interpositions of 
Providence, because nature is bound and operates 
by a pre-arranged plan. For example: Life is 
fortified and made more powerfully active by the 
union of one element with another; one seeks 
to combine with another by such a force as 
to declare that such is the purpose of the Cre- 
ator above all other considerations. An element, 
alone, acts in its own way, and as soon as it unites 
with another they both act with a double power, 
and a new potency may be developed, as if God 
had endowed them to support each other and 
put forth acts of defense and aggression to work 
out his purposes. Thus the original powers of 
nature exist and act, and Providence concurs and 
does not contravene their tendencies. 

The agreement between Providence and nature 
may be discovered in many manifestations of the 
latter. The impress of the divine hand may be 
seen on every creature, and in the laws by which 
it was ordained to act. Even in the antagonisms 
among elements and organic creatures this is ap- 
parent; and every act of a creature is according 
69 



70 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

to its nature; its good performances may be di- 
rect from God, but its crimes cannot be. Its 
wisdom may be of God, but its follies cannot be, 
and yet it has in itself an equipment by which it 
can effect good as well as evil, with or without 
God's present and direct influence. So whenever 
we discover elements repelling or uniting, we may 
know that a condition is being composed by which 
some new application of power is to be made, 
with consequent benefit or harm, which God may 
not prompt or hinder, except as may be neces- 
sary in itself. But behold how amply the Crea- 
tor has endowed nature to exist, to continue, and 
to improve by its own constitution and functions ! 



II. PRESERVATION AND IMPROVEMENT 

The powers of each of these forces which con- 
cern life are reciprocal and sympathetic, and 
unite the one to reinforce the other; that is, to 
what power nutrition has alone is added that of 
recuperation, involving healing and increase of 
healthy substance; for supply, nutriment includes 
want, and want includes craving of the organs, 
and the craving of the organs compels their ac- 
tion, without divine influence. So, indeed, it is 
with all the functions of life which have any vital 
organization. Hence we need not enlarge upon 
this very open train of reflections, so inviting to 
the inquiries of intelligence concerning Provi- 
dence. 



PROVIDENCE AND NATURE 71 

If we consider nature as destitute of the 
powers of self-preservation to sustain the process 
of improvement, still the services of living agen- 
cies — man or animals — would make the im- 
provement as they might be moved by the spirit 
of enterprise, by want, or, in the case of men, 
by refined taste, benevolence, or loyalty to the 
Creator. Thus the creature takes the initial act: 
nature is responsive; want calls, supply answers; 
love begets love, hate begets hate, and revenge 
arises against injury; distress is answered by re- 
lief; and even exhaustion or fatigue is met by 
reaction of the tired members or one's entire body, 
excited by the conditions in itself and not else- 
where. The individuals of the same species of 
creatures exist in pairs, as male and female, or in 
the bonds of likeness one to the other, and are 
mutually attractive, cohere, and subsist together 
as one, directly from themselves. They have re- 
pulsion against one or two of another species, so 
that a pair in agreement repel anyone belonging 
to another pair. Thus the Creator has endowed 
creation with the promptings and powers by 
which a single thing unites with another for 
preservation and improvement against all va- 
grant and hostile individual creatures. 



III. MAN IN ACTION 

There appears from these provisions for power 
and action in every creature some sort of revela- 



72 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

tion which men have not apprehended sufficiently 
to discover what the Creator purposes to do with 
our world, and would have his intelligent crea- 
tures do with his bountiful and varied stores. 
May not this defect in man's apprehension, in 
not seeing that the innate power of creatures re- 
quire, not so much an interfering Providence as 
an interposing manhood, spontaneous and neces- 
sarily self-asserting. Furthermore, in addition 
to these self-impulsive powers, there is an invaria- 
ble directness in every law of force and action. 
Every force goes in the direction it is sent, and 
straight to the object. If the arrow does not hit 
the mark, it is because it was not aimed exactly 
at it. If one would lift his fellow up out of 
peril and does not succeed, it is because fault was 
in him or in the circumstances; but there could 
be no failure if lifted directly from the point of 
danger to that of safety. So according to the 
law of directness, the force of nature could not 
fail unless we, or other creatures, should misapply 
them. If it is true that motion and direction are 
invariable laws in nature, there need be no addi- 
tion to the power of their operation unless they 
had been interfered with. The amazing creature 
that could derange them could also restore them 
to order; but there is no such creature, though 
all beings have been capable of conforming to 
the laws of their natures and the direction of their 
exerted power. So, in considering what man 
may do in bringing things to pass, we need to 



PROVIDENCE AND NATURE 7S 

discriminate wisely between the management of 
himself and the deeds which he must perform. 
In making this very proper discrimination, we 
come upon the fact that in many things he be- 
gins of himself and receives no help except from 
his own power and skill in the management of his 
faculties. He passes over critical points which 
turn upon the accidental sway of variant emo- 
tions, the result of his dealing with himself. 



IV. NO PROVIDENCE IN PARTIALITY 

Natural law does not prefer God's friends . 
It would be gratifying if instances could be con- 
firmed to disprove this; but no man seems to 
prosper in worldly affairs because he is good, but 
rather because he is efficient. The fields of the 
good man are not favored with rain, and those 
of the wicked neighbor passed by without it. 
The shipload of good citizens, in the same storm 
with a cargo of outlaws, is not saved by prefer- 
ence. The epidemic which spreads over a district 
does not pass by the home of the deserving and 
pitiable, and alight on the unworthy and profane. 
Nor is there any natural law or disorder of any 
kind concerning which Providence discriminates 
between good and evil people, except possibly in 
a few very exceptional instances. 

Why is this, unless it be that the prevalence 
of law and God's purposes are more important 
than are acts of mercy and goodness which might 



74 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

disturb the physical order of creation, — for to 
stop storms is to abridge the purification of the 
air. This order is recognized, as Jesus said, by 
the birds of the air being fed, and none falls to 
the ground without our Heavenly Father. It 
plainly meant that Providence causes the earth to 
produce grain, but after the grain is supplied the 
birds must seek and find it. Though the birds do 
not fall without him, yet they do fall from many 
causes, and mostly by violence. Providence cares 
for them ; still the laws of nature holds sway and 
the birds are cruelly wounded, pursued, and many 
die before the natural term of life is reached. 
So, also, he declares that he sends his rain upon 
the just and the unjust. This is another in- 
stance of the established order of nature in steady 
progression, which is sustained by the integrity 
of the universe. 



V. BOUNDARIES BETWEEN GOD AND MAN 

These instances present to us the real method 
of providential procedure ; namely : that the Crea- 
tor habitually sustains and enforces the laws of 
creation as a system of regulations for his crea- 
tures; that is, he lays down the law before them 
as fundamental and primary principles of his au- 
thority and power. For instance, that of truth 
and righteousness, and utility and improvement. 
These laws are a part of God's creative acts, and 
pertain to all things. The Creator is absolute in 



PROVIDENCE AND NATURE 75 

all the regions of these primary laws, and while 
he arranged, organized, and endowed all things, 
it is evident that he condescended no further, and 
left his creatures to fulfill their sphere. He 
ceases his exertions at those points, where man's 
abilities may meet his own. For example, the 
Creator has not made a mechanical contrivance, 
no instrument of music, no implement to reduce 
toil, no instrument to cure wounds or to rescue 
the imperilled; and certainly no gibbet, or chains, 
or block and axe, or thumb screw and pincers. 

All the realm of usefulness or suffering, as in- 
dicated by the list above, marks the boundaries of 
the sphere of man, over which Providence is Lord 
and man is steward, to do as he listeth, but to ren- 
der to his Lord account of his stewardship. 



VI. SPONTANEOUS ADJUSTMENTS 

There are also in nature powers and qualities 
of adjustment, by the force of which disorders 
and confused conditions are composed, harmony 
established, and improvement made. The world 
has been laboring in this direction. The interior 
of the earth is slowly cooling, and eventually vol- 
canoes and earthquakes may cease; and whenever 
elemental forces disturb the composure of nature, 
it settles afterward into a safer state. This, as 
already noticed in elements of less dimensions, 
appears where resemblance and affinity operate, 
and instinctively beget new subsistences, and, 



76 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

maybe, new creatures. However, it is a natural 
power, which contributes to the intensity of self- 
acting forces, which may be recognized by less 
requirement of divine power in addition to what 
it has received by original endowment, as evi- 
denced by the force of compatible and sympa- 
thetic properties among and between one sub- 
stance and another. 



VII. MORE LAW — LESS INTERPOSITION 

But are creatures more acted upon by laws 
than they may in turn act upon objects? If 
creatures are not under control of the law, they 
must be the less operated upon by it. When un- 
der control of law they develop more of its power. 
Accordingly, their sphere is widened that much 
more, and providential interpositions are that 
much less requisite. For example: a man turns 
from vice to virtue; after that he is inclined to 
submit to all law and order, and becomes a re- 
former, and applies the aid of helpful law to his 
case; and just so much as in men the will of God 
is done, there is that much less for Providence to 
accomplish. So, also, in material things. For 
instance, in desert wastes where irrigation pre- 
vails, and fields are watered as never before, and 
require less rain by divine interpositions, if such 
are, indeed, interpositions. 

It is the same as to the observance of the laws 
of health, and remedies and preventives; in 



PROVIDENCE AND NATURE 77 

other words, the more that has been done, the less 
remains to be done, whether the actuary be di- 
vine or human;, but should it be by man, then 
there are less frequent interpositions of Provi- 
dence. 

" Lord, how thy wonders are displayed, 
Wher'er I turn my eye; 
If I survey the ground I tread, 
Or gaze upon the sky." 

Watts. 



CHAPTER EIGHTH 
PROVIDENCE AND THE CREATURE 

I. DIVINE DOMINION 

Thus, as we have nature before us, and view it 
without being disturbed by prevailing theories, 
we discover two conditions of things, which in- 
dicate how far God exerts his providential do- 
minion, and also the extent to which he has com- 
mitted to his creatures the power of exerting an 
influence on nature to produce certain results. 

This first condition is, that because of the sover- 
eignty of God, his will is absolute in all laws by 
which he has endowed creation. The second con- 
dition is, that he has committed to his creatures 
the duty of keeping his laws and, under him, 
work out his designs. Accordingly, God recog- 
nizes what man can and what he cannot accom- 
plish. He requires man to fulfill his duties 
within this limit. It would be unlike a sovereign 
to permit man to omit what he can accomplish; 
so, while God rules over creation, the events that 
occur must depend upon the conduct of his crea- 
tures. Thus it is that, — as we maintain, — 
many events which are called providential acts of 
God are purely the results of what he requires 
of the creature. As all things on earth are 
changeable, the administration of Providence is 
contingent upon the changes which are continu- 
78 



PROVIDENCE AND CREATURE 79 

ally going on, and man is the responsible agent. 
But as these changes take place with the creature, 
and the effects therefrom are according to the 
laws of nature, the divine interpositions are in- 
frequent, but always beneficent, that his adminis- 
tration may not be contrary to his character. 



II. EVENTS FROM RELATIONSHIPS 

Probably all of the acts which living creatures 
perform have their origin in, and are influenced 
by, the relation that one of them holds to an- 
other. Hence it is not the spirit of God, nor 
some providential influence, which enforces what 
anyone may do, where he should be, or when he 
should go elsewhere. These three elements of 
one's situation have all to do with what may hap- 
pen to him, or what good he may obtain. And, 
in so far as our welfare and lives are subject to 
these contingencies, occurrences are brought 
about by the change of any influence or deed. 
In this regard we use the correct words when we 
describe the meaning of chance by the union of 
the two words, influence and accident. 

How, then, do some events, either good or ill, 
chance to happen? Take, as an example, the re- 
cent horror of the burning of the steamer " Gen- 
eral Slocum," June 15, 1904, at New York, when 
some twelve to sixteen hundred lives were de- 
stroyed. The motives for going on that excur- 
sion were all entirely human, the purpose being 



80 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

to enjoy a season of recreation. But the motives 
in each person arose from some condition or feel- 
ing of that particular person, which prompted 
the desire for the recreation, For instance, one 
felt that it would help her returning health; an- 
other, weary and worn, desired the bracing air of 
the harbor; another had always preferred a rich 
diet and hoped the trip might relieve his dys- 
pepsia and his mental depression; another, with 
high spirits and love of adventure, broke away 
from work to regale himself; another loved com- 
pany and desired to be with the crowd; and the 
young people and children, mainly for the recrea- 
tion and change. Similar motives operate in all 
such circumstances. 

It was the same in the burning of the Iriquois 
Theatre in Chicago, and in the Rhoads Opera 
House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, on the night 
of January 13, 1908. In the former horror 
about 800 persons perished; in the latter 169; 
in the " Slocum," between 1200 and 1600. The 
causes of these disasters were purely human. As 
to the steamer " General Slocum," carelessness 
and avarice: carelessness in the kitchen, for fire 
was allowed to kindle grease that had not been 
cleaned up; and avarice, in not having good and 
sufficient means of safety as the law required. 

Those who sought entertainment and met these 
horrors had, in general, inoffensive motives : those 
who caused the catastrophies, directly and indi- 
rectly, selfish motives. If the calamity had fal- 



PROVIDENCE AND CREATURE 81 

len on those deserving censure and punishment, 
and not on the unoffending ones, we could readily 
believe that it was an act of Providence ; but as it 
was, there is no evidence except that which estab- 
lishes the theory that Providence does not inspire, 
in any way, the evils which result from the pas- 
sions and appetites of living creatures, or from 
the potency of inanimate things, unless for some 
special and rare purpose; and, moreover, it con- 
firms the fact that what occurs of evil from the 
handling of material things by man, results from 
the relation of one thing to another in their posi- 
tion, and in the direction of the force which man 
applies to them. A person is in peril, for in- 
stance, or may be put in peril, by the same 
effort which, if made aright, would save him; 
and the effort is made by the powers of that in- 
tentional saviour. So far all seems easy to un- 
derstand. But before that comes the query as to 
the beginning of the motive that resulted in los- 
ing the one in danger. It might have been a 
direct and mortal act of God; but if the effort to 
save him resulted in wounds or death, because of 
a mistake in making the effort, how could it have 
been from a good God? May it not have been 
from Satan by evil device? Or was it not from 
the natural imperfection of the man who tried to 
save the other, and from the accidental difficulties 
in the way, which could not be overcome except 
by God, but which he abstained from because he 
does not interfere in hindering cause and effect 



82 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

when, in goodness, he might interpose, except on 
the rare occasions which all men witness in the 
course of events in this world? 



III. EFFECTS FROxM CAUSES IN NATURE 

Of all the facts which nature manifests, noth- 
ing can seem more evident than that causes arise 
from her operations. We may call them second- 
ary causes: but they begin in the varied condi- 
tions to which things may be subjected from time 
to time. So, when a match is touched to an in- 
flammable substance, a fire breaks out. This is 
true whether man or God should perform the 
service; but when a man thus starts a conflagra- 
tion we denounce him as a criminal. But suppos- 
ing it to be done as a providential influence: we 
would execute the man for the crime of arson, 
and praise God for his righteousness in provi- 
dentially punishing the owner of the burnt prop- 
erty, as at best but a miserable sinner, — though 
meantime he is one of God's most devoted chil- 
dren. No, Providence was far from it: it was 
the deed of ignorant, careless, malicious man or 
devil, in violation of God's laws, moral and 
physical. 



CHAPTER NINTH 

THE MENTAL REALM 

I. AUTOMOTE THOUGHT 

We know that it is impossible to apprehend the 
will and purposes of God, which have not yet been 
fully revealed to us ; but mankind have accustomed 
themselves to think of the Creator abstractly, and 
thus they confine their ideas of the Deity severely 
to the literal description. As, when the Scrip- 
tures speak of his justice, they do not consider 
the modifying conditions affecting its application, 
as recognized in his mercy and in the palliating 
circumstances of the offending subjects. Perdi- 
tion is utterly deep for all alike, and punishment 
for the wicked would be inadequate if it were any 
less than eternal, they say. But the only oppor- 
tunity for a correct understanding of the disposi- 
tion of any sovereign is by a consideration of the 
relation subsisting between him and his subjects, 
together with all the circumstances of the latter. 
This is so because these are the conditions which 
make government necessary and practicable. If, 
therefore, we may not know the mind of God be- 
cause of its being infinite, we may become some- 
what acquainted therewith through what he de- 
clares he is doing in any case; then, also, by the 
relations of persons and things, and their relation 
with himself. So in his governing our world, and 
83 



84 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

the individuals thereof, in his established way, we 
may feel quite sure as to what he does, or may do ; 
and this manner of exercising human judgment 
on the meaning and intensity of Scripture sup- 
plies those adjuncts sufficient for a fuller knowl- 
edge of them, and a warrantable investigation of 
the mind of God. Accordingly, we now suggest 
how the human mind, excited by certain objects, 
affects events which are falsely considered as 
purely providential. They are objects of beauty, 
utility, and achievement, which are incentives to 
innate mental and passional action, and the good 
or evil effects thereof. 



II. OBJECTS OF BEAUTY 

These, whether of color, form, or sound, address 
the earliest and deepest sources of responsiveness 
in our natures, exciting pleasurable emotions and 
actions corresponding therewith — heroism or 
benevolence — neither of which might have oc- 
curred but by the influence of a beautiful presen- 
tation. Providence had previously arranged in 
external nature and in us for such effects ; but the 
incident of our hearing melody, or viewing the 
charming spectacle, was as accidental as the oc- 
currence of some calamity unworthy the benig- 
nant character of God. The enthusiasm, the 
rapture, the ecstasy may bear one above his com- 
mon feelings and cause him to achieve some bril- 
liant deed, or in a wrong direction, under the same 



THE MENTAL REALM 85 

exhilaration, may prompt him to some atrocious 
offense. Objects of beauty designed by our 
benevolent Creator for our enjoyment and virtu- 
ous conduct have been submitted to us, as well also 
as the effect which we may allow them to have 
upon our conduct for good or evil. In such 
cases we are more effectively concerned than is 
Providence. 



III. OBJECTS OF UTILITY 

The Creator has presented abundant supplies 
of crude materials which suggest some thought, 
awake some desire, or tend to some useful pur- 
pose. Does a man need shelter? There stand 
before him the trees of the forest. How shall he 
utilize them for his building? There is iron in 
the hills: the ore suggests iron, iron suggests 
steel, and steel suggests all needed implements for 
making the structure. And it requires a certain 
degree of intelligence and enterprise in men to 
qualify them for forming the instruments and 
doing the work. But before they can become 
capable, civilization, education and enterprise 
must have done their work upon that portion of 
mankind. These qualifications require that man- 
kind should do those things for themselves, and 
the crude material for all implements of usefulness 
has been evidently held in reserve by Providence 
— waiting until the wants of man and his in- 
creasing intelligence, rather than the promptings 



86 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

of the mind of God, should impel him to improve 
the condition of himself and the world around 
him. 

We may suggest a train of casualties which 
Providence could not have prompted, and hence 
the consequences could not have been providential. 
A dispute as to the ownership of a tool results in 
a mortal combat; by carelessness scaffolding was 
not made secure and fell with fatal results; the 
house was not provided with means for sufficient 
ventilation and the resident family suffered from 
illness. 

It must be evident that everything done from 
the first, in using the minerals for the making of 
iron, on through to the latest accident, proceeded 
from the minds of men rather than from the 
mind of God, if not, indeed, entirely against his 
will. Providence exerted no influence in having 
mishaps take place in regard to the building 
of a home. Was not every one of those evils the 
consequences of the faults in the minds of those 
men — that is, a pure accident because of their 
mistakes ? 

We can reasonably declare likewise in regard 
to all things which might be useful in this world 
— in all branches of human need, and in the 
beneficent industries associated therewith; but in 
every case, the worse the evil results, the more the 
best Christian people seem to be afraid of wrong 
in their faith, unless they should call these acci- 
dents the mysterious providences of God. And 



THE MENTAL REALM 87 

they would ask the one who dared to express doubt 
whether he thought that God does not govern the 
world. We should say that though God was 
present, yet he exerted no influence in these cases 
because it was mismanagement, effected by man's 
exercise of his freedom to proceed in a correct 
manner, and that even the correction of these mis- 
takes lay in the men and the circumstances ; but 
the evils suffered by the persons were according to 
God's laws of retribution. 



IV. ACHIEVEMENTS 

The achievements of mankind are not so much 
from the impulses of want as are the utilities. 
They are more from the impulses of genius, or a 
higher condition of mind, and arise from those 
natural aspirations of soul which are man's char- 
acteristics above lower orders of intelligence. 
These impulses are approximate to the preternat- 
ural or perhaps the celestial; they are so very 
sympathetic and so related to each other that 
when an object of enterprise or achievement pre- 
sents itself to one trait of genius, all the higher 
instincts of that species awake to a greater or 
less degree. Painting and sculpture are within 
touch of poetry; handicraft is near to architec- 
ture, and blacksmithing is close to higher me- 
chanics ; and carpentry and masonry point aloft 
to monuments, towers, palaces and temples. 

Now, consider the producer of immortal repli- 



88 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

cates, and observe the first impulses he felt toward 
his high calling. It may have been in his in- 
fancy, and might seem as the push of an innate 
faculty to become an artist. It may have been 
excited by some outward object, which made sug- 
gestion to the latent inclination, which then awoke. 
But in either case the primal impulses to his 
future achievements arose from the original en- 
dowments in himself, and the solicitation of possi- 
bilities in the external world — in its beauties and 
its various colorings, and even from the sugges- 
tion that while the earth and man, friends and 
foes, shall pass away, yet their memory might 
endure in their picture — to the eye as well as 
by means of story. 

So in nature there is a supply for every want, 
a response to every demand, and a duplicate to 
every ideal. These are astir by a spontaneous 
energy, as one seems to salute its fellow — as 
when flames issue from the contact of kindred 
inflammable substances, uniting the forces gen- 
erated within them as God had created them with 
those qualities of spontaneous and responsive 
activity. 

Now, some calamity — wounds, sickness — may 
happen from unknown causes in relation to these 
high exertions of power. An edifice has fallen, 
a painting of beauty has dissolved to ashes ; and 
immediately the first and irrepressible desire arises 
from the very fiber of the artist, to reconstruct 
and enlarge the edifice, or to restore or produce 



THE MENTAL REALM 89 

even a better portraiture than that which had been 
destroyed. These are the instinctive impulses of 
enterprise and refined taste, which cannot be 
abated unless first the moral and intellectual na- 
ture of the artist has been reduced to depravity, 
or the Almighty has withdrawn the artistic en- 
dowment. But Providence has created and made 
available all the means for the restoration of lost 
values throughout the world. Does our critic 
contend that Providence, having furnished means 
of repair, simply influences the demolition of 
precious human creations, in order that he may 
have an opportunity to make use of those means 
of repair, since he has provided them and must 
on that account put them to some use of some 
sort? Or rather, is it not because God recognizes 
the disorders of the world and the ills resulting 
therefrom, and has furnished throughout nature 
all manner of means for cure and restoration, es- 
sentially in the creature, each for itself and one 
for another? If we can accept this last thought 
affirmatively, then we have the solution of what 
has seemed inscrutable and hidden in deep mystery. 
We have also the response from all that men have 
known of beneficent government, from all ap- 
pearances and from all that is enduring and 
worthy the respect of intelligent subjects held in 
suspense and longing for a dissolution of man- 
made theories and doctrines. 



CHAPTER TENTH 
THE MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 

" Deep in unfathomable mines, 
Of never failing skill; 
He treasures up his bright designs, 
And works his sovereign will." 

I. DETERIORATION 

The Creator, being perfect, would produce only 
perfect creatures, each, however, of its own kind. 
This pertained to his primary act in creating; 
after that the world and creatures therein were 
subject to the faculties given them, and the en- 
vironments by which they might be affected, either 
for good or evil. And herein is the revelation of 
the condition of the world since man's sinful fall. 

The entire creation constitutes a system of close 
relationships and adaptations. Were all that 
was created placed or wrought into complete ad- 
justment, the purpose of Providence and the 
work of mankind would then be accomplished. 
But, as we have already noted, this task has been 
delegated to man ; his willingness, rather than his 
ability, is dubious. The delay is because Provi- 
dence waits for man's movements ; the adaptations 
and fitness of things afford the facilities ; and his 
endowments render man competent and responsi- 
ble, while God keeps the reckoning. The Creator 
90 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 91 

does not interfere with his agencies ; at least, the 
Scripture account seems clearly to presuppose that 
man's agency was not repressed, if indeed it were 
morally possible to limit it. And even could we ad- 
mit that the Creator consented, or further, that 
such was his purpose, still the derogatory terms 
used in Scripture against the fall of Lucifer from 
Heaven and becoming Satan, and effecting the fall 
of man into sin and death, thus involving the world 
in disorder, declare the prerogatives of rational 
creatures to will and to do contrarily to the will 
of God. For God could not declare that " the 
soul that sinneth shall die " if he could have con- 
sistently prevented him from sinning. So, in a 
word, it is plain that man is a free moral agent, 
and as such commits sin without God, and against 
him; and thus as man, in his unregenerate state, 
commits more sinful acts than righteous ones, 
therefore the evil occurrences, the calamities, the 
personal wrongs, the avoidable ills, the deaths be- 
fore full age are not, except in few cases, from 
Providence, but are the consequences of the vari- 
ous disorders in nature and of the faults of man- 
kind and the maliciousness of the " Devil and his 
angels." 



II. PROVIDENTIAL PURPOSES IN NATURE 

There are indubitable evidences of the purpose 
of the Creator to remedy the disorders of nature. 
These are apparent in the realms of the moral, 



92 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

mental, and physical departments of creation, in 
which realms, also, nature acts spontaneously. 
Evidence of this purpose could not exist so much 
in the material world because of the greater de- 
ficiency in its composition and self-motion; for 
matter cannot even coalesce one portion with an- 
other unless placed nearly together by some force 
external to the several parts. But when placed 
within the scope of actual attraction they unite, 
and when united may, by force of repulsion, ex- 
plode or gradually separate. Thus the ruling 
principles of material nature, as well as all cre- 
ation, are at work either improving or destroying, 
and inasmuch as modern times afford some evi- 
dence of a superior condition of the material 
world by adjustments from primitive rocks, on 
up through coal strata to the fertile fields on the 
surface, we may venture to conclude that this is 
also the Creator's remedial order, by which, 
through all the realms of creation, he has de- 
termined to compose disorders and effect the resti- 
tution of the alienated elements of the universe. 



III. INNATE REMEDIES 

A wound in plant or tree, in flesh or artery or 
nerve of any animal is healed by its own life force 
which the Creator bestowed in the beginning and 
which continues from one generation to another, 
after thousands of years of continuous use. This 
inherent power of remedy is complemented by 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 93 

healing properties readily transferred from one 
creature to another, without deficiency and with 
only accidental failure in remedying wounds and 
diseases. 

The permanency and specific character of this 
remedial plan may be observed in the fact that 
God rarely heals wounds or cures diseases by his 
command or by substitution of any other method. 
Witness, for example, the whole body of godly 
people of the nation praying without avail for the 
lives of three of our Presidents, shot by infamous 
persons. Some man might say that it is not rev- 
erential to inquire why God did not interpose and 
save these illustrious men from dying, especially 
when such prayers were offered as against his 
sovereign will. But as all the circumstances of 
their being wounded were turned to the purposes 
of assassins, we should be showing reverence to 
devils should we not ask why God did not inter- 
pose for the lives of those men ; but when we would 
ask why God did not answer the prayers of the 
helpless multitudes, we should tread more softly. 
Still, we may press the inquiry in order to defend 
the divine truth against a false doctrine. 

If we believed that God is simply Fate, and if 
our minds could revere him as such, then indeed we 
should not dare to propose even a suggestion as 
to why he did not respond to those most persua- 
sive prayers. Surely a righteous God could not 
have instigated the assassination of these three 
great men, and, on the other hand, he did not 



94 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

counteract this wickedness by direct answer or 
by the skill of men or the remedial means in 
nature. 

Some man might say that those considerations 
make it certain that it was the purpose of Provi- 
dence that they should die. No, not so, if our 
God is righteous and good, and he and Satan not 
the same. It is more likely that God let the evil 
condition of human nature, as exhibited by the 
assassins, run on to show to mankind the need of 
reformation and the regeneration of the human 
character in general. These men having become 
the victims of free natural wickedness, it was bet- 
ter for the purpose of correcting the moral evils 
of human nature that the world should be 
shocked by the greatness of the crime. And thus 
the character of God, on the one hand, forbade 
that he might cause these atrocities; and, on the 
other, after the crimes had been committed, his 
purposes of correcting the disorders of the world 
prevented his interposition to save the lives of the 
victims, who — the more they were distinguished 

— may have made it the more requisite for re- 
form that Providence should not interpose to save 
their lives. 

Thus the great fact is shown that Providence 
does not at all times exert his power, but, remit- 
ting his efforts, permits the laws he gave to nature 

— and constantly operating — to accomplish 
their own results, and meantime, to effect his sov- 
ereign purposes in the world's improvement. 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 95 

IV. LIMITATIONS AND EVOLUTION 

There is no way to reconcile God's character 
with what men have been calling his providential 
acts, but by allowing that he places limitations 
upon his interpositions. This may be evidenced 
in cases in which there is little or no room for one 
mind to act upon another to influence it to act 
contrary to its condition — as in the case of an 
insane man or of some lower creatures which have 
but one chief mental faculty, and the strength 
of their entire person concentrated in that. For 
instance, a maniac always acts by the force and 
direction of his mania ; his mind, his purposes, are 
all in control of his frenzied condition. Now, 
observation shows that he is not controlled except 
by the power of man or by means that man may 
use upon him. If he is not mastered by man, 
he may cause great injury. There is little in him 
for either the divine or the human mind to take 
hold upon; and it is noticeable that the mind of 
God exerts no more influence upon him than there 
is reasoning faculty in the madman himself. 
While God is able to do all things, yet he does 
not affect the maniac any more than according to 
that measure. Thus it is that Providence limits 
his interpositions to effect any event, except spe- 
cial ones affecting the condition of the objects in 
his administration, but not the course of nature 
and its laws. 

The same principles prevail, also, in the evolu- 



96 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

tion of natural traits. It is whatever exists es- 
sentially, whether good or evil, or both, that may 
be subject to the processes of evolution; and as 
these qualities of good and evil subsist in all 
creatures, so the evolution will be of those common 
faculties and traits which may be most assertive 
or most subject to whatever may urge or invite 
them. Thus evolution of a bad or a defective 
trait may make the subject quite inferior, and 
produce lower races. On the other hand, the 
evolution of good qualities proceeds from the 
good in the subject, and may not be effected but 
by conditions which may nourish them. The evo- 
lution of wrong and disorder require no effort ; 
only let natural tendencies alone with the de- 
praved conditions of the world, and the evolution 
of evil is the natural sequence. These realities, as 
above stated, prevail in the history of our world, 
probably with no exceptions save where Provi- 
dence has specifically interposed or mankind has 
intervened with good or evil influences. 



V. EVOLUTION SPONTANEOUS 

The moral qualities in man are subject to the 
principles of evolution, as well as all other ele- 
ments of human nature; for as man is endowed 
with a moral nature, and faculties by which these 
elements seem to exist and operate, so, of course, 
they may degenerate, or develop more largely and 
continuously. This development would consist of 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 97 

the expansion and intensifying of the essential 
moral qualities innate in man because the faculties 
had to precede the moral qualities in creation, in 
natural order, as a soul could not exist for each 
person until first the man and his faculties had 
been created in whom the soul was to reside; for 
example, such as faculties for moral apprehen- 
sion or understanding, affection, and conscience, 
for these must follow a man's creation. The 
moral or immoral conduct would be of the nature 
of the being. We maintain that as moral quali- 
ties arise from the constitution of his nature, for 
that reason the purpose of God is that his good 
qualities, as well as his immoral ones, may not be 
pre-empted or overborne either by God or Satan ; 
while, at the same time, they may be graciously 
aided by the Deity, or maliciously hindered by an 
evil agency, and in each case, a good or bad event 
occurs. But in ascending into the spiritual realm 
— which is the sphere of God — we discover that 
the spiritual life in man must be derived instantly 
from God. It is imparted to the soul of man, and 
is given or withheld, and conditioned on his vital 
union by fidelity to God: " Christ in you the 
hope of Glory," " Filled with all the fulness of 
God." And, on the other hand, morality exists in 
virtue of man's natural ability to be good, and is 
limited by the terminal of that ability. This 
natural moral power and its goodly inclinations 
have become effectual by the gracious state of the 
moral and spiritual world, and its helpful influ- 



98 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

ences attending every person. These conditions 
were established in our world immediately after 
man had fallen into sin, and needed to be helped 
and rescued by the virtues of God made prevalent 
for all men in the reign and dominion of the 
Messiah, who was Jesus of Nazareth, according to 
evidences in his nature, character and sacrificial 
offices. Thus Adam, having become utterly de- 
praved and impotent, was dependent to the utmost 
on the Saviour to come, whosoever he might be. 

" No human deeds nor fancied worth, 
No pitiable needs nor royal birth, 
Could cleanse the blot, nor righteousness bestow; 
By grace alone, the cleansing stream may flow." 

But the judicial and remedial efficacy of the 
Saviour became helpful immediately, requiring 
something to be done by man, and thus meet the 
demands of this accommodation. The ability had 
to be conferred, or else man could not be held 
responsible, any more than could a block or stone. 
And thereby he was enabled to respond to all the 
calls of God and nature. Thus under this plan 
of restoration, man — whatever character he 
might have — became again a self-acting creature ; 
hence by his own will he can love or hate, endow 
or defraud, save or destroy. Thus all things are 
ready for any and all the alternatives of achieve- 
ment. 

And now the voluntary deeds of man are mainly 
to determine what events shall transpire for good 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 99 

or evil; but a substantial hindrance is in his of- 
fensive attitude toward God. This must be 
changed by his repentance and faith in the mercy 
of God through the merits of the Lord Jesus 
Christ prevailing for them. Another substantial 
condition is, that he shall be regenerated in heart 
into the spiritual life — which is as the life of 
God — as a definite and peculiar state in which the 
soul, having been brought " from death unto 
life " day by day lives in fellowship and com- 
munion with God. 

In this life of the spirit one lives in God, and 
" Christ in him is the hope of glory." And all 
evolution of character is by the continuous succor 
and inspiration of God. Here, in this realm of 
the spiritual, is where all that man can do is to 
render compliance to God's will, owning himself 
to be under condemnation and utterly dependent 
upon the spiritual providence of God. It is also 
in this realm, and ministering to his purpose in 
regard to it, where Providence is and must needs 
be absolute, and all creatures in submission. 
Hence it seems that if men should take these con- 
ditions as a view point from which to discover the 
ways of Providence, and the explication of the 
Scriptural doctrine of the divine administration, 
they would discover that providential events begin 
and continue chiefly in relation to the spiritual 
world, and the consequent eternal destiny of God's 
earthly creatures, and reasons would appear to 
show why man must be so efficient and great. 



100 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

Here again, in this fact of providential adminis- 
tration for eternal concerns, appears the immuta- 
bility of the laws of God in all things, which 
indicate that he governs according to those laws 
with scrupulous adherence to them. For he surely 
wills that all men shall be saved as he has declared, 
which declaration accords with his goodness and 
mercy. And yet, while the terms upon which sal- 
vation is obtained are positive, the opportunities 
are very unequally presented among mankind: 
some are suddenly cut off without a moment's 
warning or time for prayer, and sometimes multi- 
tudes — a promiscuous throng of variant char- 
acters. In such cases, if by the instance of Provi- 
dence the calamity occurs, then what a horrible 
incongruity between the act of God in such a 
case and his will that all men shall be saved, and 
against the soothing declaration that he " takes 
no pleasure in the death of him that dieth" ! 

VI. VINDICATION OF PROVIDENCE 

But, on the opposite hand, if we attribute ad- 
verse events as proceeding from the uniform and 
fixed course of the laws of creation, operating 
through the changes and disorders of nature and 
living creatures, we thereby have one relief to this 
problem, seemingly so mysterious. And if we 
believe in the essential righteousness of God, we 
cannot admit that he influences the slaughter of 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 101 

the good with the wicked, and gives no chance of 
salvation to the latter, or makes no merciful con- 
cessions to the terms upon which they might be 
saved from natural or spiritual death at the time 
of the catastrophe. And this is the second term 
of relief from bondage to a virtual accusation 
against the goodness and righteousness of God. 

And finally, if we may believe that every man's 
salvation depends upon his own exertions in com- 
plying with God's terms and through the good- 
ness of God in condoning his infirmities and 
hindrances from his inborn nature, and the cir- 
cumstances of his life and their inevitable evil 
influence upon him, then we thus have a full 
vindication of God's goodness and righteousness, 
and an open way to believing that the events of 
life are habitually natural occurrences and that 
events by the interposition of Providence are spe- 
cial and occasional, and not continuous nor as 
promotive of evils as they are of good in our 
lives, nor of the afflictions so much as is supposed 
to be necessary for discipline and refinement of 
the soul. 

No one believes that evils are promotive of 
good, considered as affecting our earthly estate, 
any more than that they may give occasion for 
some other good, or in some way become cor- 
rective of greater evil when such a result may be 
possible. If this is so, it seems to be true because, 
in morals, of the conscience of men, and the sense 



102 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

of self-preservation, and, in general, because of 
the lively recuperative faculty in anything when 
injured. 

As to our afflictions, it is clearly declared in the 
Scriptures that they are designed for our dis- 
cipline and improvement, but not of all of them 
is it thus declared. Many of them subsist in the 
natural disorders of things and in living creatures, 
and clearly arise therefrom by the forces which 
reside in them. These forces are set in motion 
by the condition in which they happen to be, and 
by the changeable relations of one thing with an- 
other, continually going on. A certain person 
goes to the relief of a leper or a case of smallpox, 
and becomes infected ; if this was an affliction for 
his or her discipline and improvement, it could 
only teach that that good person should not go 
into danger to relieve distress, and hence selfishness 
or imprudence would be inculcated by Providence. 
So, the sane conclusion may be that only the 
benevolence of the person prompted the deed, that 
the disease, by the force of natural law, infected 
him, and that Providence did not interpose against 
it, thereby permitting this oft-repeated emphasis 
of God's commission, that man shall remedy these 
evils. 



VII. NO METHOD — NO PROVIDENCE 

God, in wisdom, would afflict only to correct 
and improve the world, and surely he would con- 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 103 

sider how an affliction would affect a certain in- 
dividual. Some afflictions would humble some 
persons, while causing others to rebel against him. 
Profitable afflictions may come from Providence; 
others may emanate from evil sources, not author- 
ized but permitted by God. In any case, the 
good or evil result does not depend upon the 
character of the source, but upon the character 
and temper of the man, beast, or bird which may 
suffer. Hence we may know what afflictions come 
from Providence, solely by their being admin- 
istered in righteousness and goodness, and not 
promiscuously. 

It should be remarked, again, that afflictions in- 
volve the good as well as the bad, and that often 
the righteous suffer most ; at least we cannot dis- 
cern any difference, now or in modern historic 
times. What does this signify, unless it is that 
natural law and earthly circumstances according 
thereto are holding sway by the purpose of the 
Creator, and that he interposes betimes according 
to his pleasure? How could it mean that afflic- 
tions have a purifying efficiency, except only de- 
pendent upon the character and temper of the 
man or animal upon which the affliction falls? 

If it is considered that the Lord Jesus Christ 
" was made perfect through suffering," the ex- 
planation may be that he accomplished our re- 
demption through his sufferings, and not that he, 
the God-man, could have been personally improved 
by them. St. Paul says : " These light afflic- 



104 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

tions which endure but for a moment, work out 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." These trials gave them the opportunity of 
suffering for God's sake; but as the opportunity 
came, as we know, from workers of evil and from 
horrible persecutions, it was not by the purpose 
of Providence; and inasmuch as these afflictions 
came from evil, it afforded a field for heroic de- 
votion to God in the midst of natural disorders 
and voluntary ignorance and wickedness. 

There are evidently four sources of affliction: 
the Creator, for the maintenance of righteousness ; 
intelligent agencies ; man against himself ; and 
natural disorders throughout creation. 

Afflictions are to be remedied by obedience to 
the will of God in all things, by morality, good 
will, education in nature and its laws, and temper- 
ance in the use of all things. Afflictions being in 
the world, God makes them profitable through our 
fidelity. 



VIII. IMPROVEMENT, LESS INTERPOSITIONS 

We have already observed that as wrongs 
and evil conditions are remedied, the occasions for 
providential interpositions are reduced in just 
that much; for if a sinner has been converted 
from the error of his ways, or some great purpose 
of God is accomplished, then as this is the end 
of it, there can be no more occasion for interpo- 
sition in that case. And thus, as faults are rem- 



MIND OF GOD IN CREATION 105 

edied and improvements made, there is diminished 
room for further repairs. As when a machine has 
not been fully adjusted to its work, the maker 
continues to repair and mend less and less as it 
improves ; and when it has been completely 
adapted to its performances, the maker ceases his 
interpositions. The machine working perfectly 
is the glory of the maker — much more than his 
repairing its fractures or adding to its efficiency, 
for the fractures are either evidences of faults in 
the making or of improvident handling by others. 

Rational creatures are capable of committing 
great depredations upon the works of God; in- 
deed, there is no thing or place that is exempt 
from their ravages, while on the opposite hand, 
there are limits discernible to the beneficent effects 
of faithful, intelligent creatures. Whenever the 
faithful predominate, the world advances in 
health and long life, and in all conditions pro- 
motive thereof; and as the years pass on, diseases 
and general calamities decrease in ratio with this 
fidelity to God and his laws. 

Coincident with these advancements, the open- 
ing of new fields of goodly enterprise, are new 
dangers and remedies, all of which are looking to 
some great terminal when providential care will 
cease, because all faults shall have been remedied 
and all enemies forever subdued. But as we go 
back deeper into the past and into the more 
dense degradation of our race, we find that Provi- 
dence was manifested plainly in his direct inter- 



106 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

positions. There the personal God of the Jews 
is constantly manifested. Since the New Testa- 
ment economy has prevailed, God has been more 
manifested in the spiritual domain and less in the 
natural, both in declarations and in his personal 
acts and instrumentalities. Different conditions 
in things, as we see, affect both the frequency and 
effectiveness of divine interpositions, as if divine 
care, supplementing the powers inherent in 
creatures, were only an accommodation to relieve 
the faults and inefficiency of the world, waiting 
on man, to make it better, until Providence might 
again exclaim of creation, " Behold, it is very 
good." 



CHAPTER ELEVENTH 

MAN AND HIS SPHERE 

" Oh what is man, great Maker of Mankind, 

That thou to him so great respect dost bear; 
That thou adornest him with so great a mind, 
Makest him a king, and even an angel's peer." 
Sir John Davies. 

I. DOMINION GIVEN TO MAN 

When we view all creatures which are less than 
man, we can discern but two purposes which the 
Creator had in creating them. One was to confer 
on something the pleasures of existence; another 
was to make them serviceable. The higher 
creatures formed one distinctive order of intel- 
lectual and moral qualities which rendered them 
capable of utilizing the lower orders to effect 
certain great ends, which are indicated in the capa- 
bilities of all natural objects which suggest the 
purposes which the Creator had in reference to 
them and the world. 

None other than man, on earth, is created and 
endowed for this service: to this he was devoted, 
and exclusive dominion given him. This the 
Scriptures most strongly declare, as follows: 

" And God said : Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness, and let him have domin- 
ion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
107 



108 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon 
the earth. So God created man in his own image, 
in the image of God created he him; male and 
female created he them. And God blessed them, 
and God said unto them : Be fruitful and multi- 
ply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
the fowl of the air, and over every thing that 
moveth upon the earth. And God said: Behold, 
I have given you every herb bearing seed which 
is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, 
in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to 
you it shall be for meat ; and to every beast of the 
earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every 
thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there 
is life (a living soul) I have given every green 
herb for meat ; and it was so." Genesis I. 26-30. 

Here we see that dominion was given to man 
over all living creatures and the products of the 
earth; and this dominion was a likeness of God, 
whereby man became an agent in the events of 
Providence. 

" O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name 
in all the earth ; who hath set thy glory above the 
heavens ; out of the mouth of babes and sucklings 
hath thou ordained strength, because of thine 
enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and 
the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the 
work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which 
thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art 
mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visit- 



MAN AND HIS SPHERE 109 

est him ; for thou hast made him little lower than 
the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and 
honor ; thou madest him to have dominion over the 
works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things un- 
der his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the 
beasts of the field ; the fowl of the air, and the fish 
of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the 
paths of the sea ; O Lord, our Lord, how excellent 
is thy name in all the earth." Psalm viii. 
The dominion of man is complete. 



II. ABILITIES IN MAN AND NATURE 

The adaptation of human powers to the capa- 
bilities of nature, requires that he should act from 
his own promptings and powers instantly. If 
the abilities of mankind on one hand and the capa- 
bilities of nature on the other could be seen, a 
beautiful correspondence and equipoise between 
them would be apparent, such as has not been 
fully apprehended. From what mankind have 
already accomplished, we can but conclude that 
there are no secrets in nature which they may not 
discover, and no capabilites that they cannot de- 
velop. Man's mental faculties, his physical apti- 
tudes, qualify him for such achievement, and 
require such a field of employment to justify the 
fact that such a being as he had been wisely cre- 
ated ; and if we add to this consideration that God 
has given to him dominion over the earth, the mat- 
ter is conclusive as to his control over nature. 



110 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

We may observe more particularly that the terms 
in which God conferred dominion upon him over 
the earth and all creatures therein, are absolute; 
so much so, in fact, that if applied by one man 
to another, it would be taken to mean that the one 
had actually transferred his right and authority 
to the other. Indeed, to limit man's authority in 
this commission, it would be necessary to qualify 
the language of God in conferring the endowment 
upon man. The least that can be made of the 
language is that man, under divine authority, is 
placed absolutely in the care of the creatures of 
this world. The commission is consistent with the 
order of an organization and system constituted 
to have full power in itself, and requiring regula- 
tion from external sources, such as man, who in 
turn needs to be regulated by his Creator. The 
powers of man are not too small, or too great, for 
the control and improvement of all inferior earthly 
creatures. And if he have not this suitable sphere 
for his powers, then many of his most God-like 
faculties would be left without employment, and 
subject to decline in consequence, and the world 
left without the only agency whereby God had 
determined to improve it. 

The Scriptures declare that God breathed into 
man the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul (i. e., a being, a psyche, a person, a body), 
and his body became alive. And the same is prac- 
tically declared of trees and plants, in regard to 
their life being in their seeds, that is, in themselves. 



MAN AND HIS SPHERE 111 

So, if God controls their actions, and compels one 
creature to do this and another that, then he would 
now plant the trees, sustain them against storms, 
hew down and set them up ; and man, contrary to 
these passages of Scripture, would have no domin- 
ion at all, unless it is true that His creatures have 
life and powers within themselves by his absolute 
endowment. 

The plain truth is, that God has endowed ani- 
mate creatures with life and self-acting properties, 
a perpetual endowment within themselves, to have 
the control of all earthly things, while God sus- 
tains those powers and interposes specially and 
occasionally only. Thus most of the events which 
occur in our world come by natural causes, re- 
sulting from the way man may place or misplace 
things, powers, and himself, except those occasions 
wherein God has a greater and more special pur- 
pose requiring his interposition. 



CHAPTER TWELFTH 

OMNIPOTENCE AND OMNIPRESENCE OF 
GOD 

" The eternal fire which fills each vital flame, 
Collected or diffused is still the same; 
God dwells within his own unfathomed essence, 
And fills all space with his unbounded presence." 
Mrs. Barbauld. 

I. INTERMISSIONS OF GOD 

It is commonly presumed that these attributes 
of God signify that in all cases they must be ex- 
erted without limit, and that every event of the 
universe is affected in some way, and surely, by 
providential arrangement and influence. Then it 
must also mean that everything is he, or a part of 
him. Thus we would have a powerful logic, 
falsely based, carrying us into idolatry; and the 
more loyally devoted we would be, the less of the 
true God and the more of heathenish degradation. 
We should worship reptiles and beasts as gods, 
tyrant rulers of our conduct and providential des- 
tinies. 

The alternative is the fact that God's presence 
does not necessitate action on his part, and that 
he modifies his actions accordingly to the circum- 
stances as they may be connected with any pur- 
pose he may have therewith. No one but a pan- 
theist believes otherwise ; but the teachings of some 
IIS 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 113 

creeds — indeed, nearly all on the Bible — affirm 
that Providence administers the affairs of creation, 
as if the creed were that of the pantheists. Their 
logic is as follows : " God is everywhere present ; 
therefore he is in everything and influences every- 
thing." But when they come to the ultimate and 
necessary conclusion, which only can justify their 
premises, namely, that therefore God is every- 
thing, and, of course, everything is God, they hesi- 
tate, because the horribleness of such a conclusion 
confronts them. 

The idea of God doing everything by use of the 
creature, or by replacing the actions thereof by 
his own — for this is the substance of their doc- 
trine — would be as if a man were not a man, and 
an animal not an animal ; and by their powers be- 
ing replaced by God's energy, they are emptied 
and their vacancy is filled with God, and the skele- 
ton frame of the disgorged, dismantled creature, 
with God in it, has become God. We write this in 
these terms in fear of being irreverent with the di- 
vine name ; yet the protection due to his sacredness 
requires that such a doctrine be held up to warn 
men by the ridiculousness of the logic drawn from 
the premise that God, being present in everything, 
therefore does or influences all that his creatures 
do. Now, on the opposite hand, if we hold that 
God is a person and distinct from every creature, 
yet present with it, we thereby recognize his per- 
sonal identity and the separate and distinctive fac- 
ulties and functions of every creature. Then it is 



114 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

that, when God has said, " Thou shalt," and 
" Thou shalt not," man's identity is recognized, 
the freedom of human actions and the method of 
Divine Providence are laid open to reason and be- 
fore the pages of the Holy Scriptures, from be- 
ginning to end. 



II. RESTRAINT AND REMEDY 

We may say that God may be pleased to limit 
the exertion of his omnipotence to suit the condi- 
tion in which an object may be involved, needing 
less or more help or hindrance. Indeed, it is 
strange that with this operation going on before 
the naked eye in natural things, men disallow it in 
moral affairs and in the providences of God. 

In the increase and decrease of the application 
of God's omnipotence exists the possibility of va- 
rious actions in nature. For example, if the sun, 
in the summer and when more nearly over head 
— though it is more distant than in winter — 
were not hotter, then the law of heat and cold 
would be deranged ; and if God sent rain and did 
not restrain his power in sending it, he would 
deluge and wreck the earth. So, when men dam 
back streams for useful purposes, they art only 
acting in a smaller way as God acts, and are ef- 
fecting results as he might do. The dam might 
afford water to a city, or it might break and in- 
jure it by the excess or recess of free power by 
opening or closing the gates. 



THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 115 

So, in the governmental aspect of the divine 
administration, we may discover that the condition 
of things before God are suggestive of what in 
each case might or should be done. This is un- 
necessary, however, and in effect impossible, as he 
knows all things beyond any suggestion; but it 
does correctly state the natural attitude of things 
as in relation to him. Hence if God would heal 
the sick, he would act just as man needs to act in_ 
suggesting any natural remedies. Our Heavenly 
Father acts with us when we need help ; in his 
goodness he seeks to benefit us even by the evils 
we bring upon ourselves. In his righteousness, he 
would not lead us into evil, nor permit it to come 
upon us by any omission of care within his sphere, 
according to his plan of governing the world; 
but he will not infringe upon our sphere, and do 
for us what he has determined that we shall do for 
ourselves. He affords us remedies for all evils. 

The remedial system is sustained by laws which. 
can never fail; for every creature remains in the 
same class or species to which it belonged at the 
first, and every remedy remains to cure the evil 
which it cured in the beginning. The peculiar- 
ity most striking in relation to this entire ar- 
rangement is, that the remedy is sought by the 
being or thing injured. For example: The soul 
of man seeks a Saviour, and conscience excites the 
desire to be saved; and so in all things there 
is a desire or yearning for the remedy which is 
always abounding. 



116 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

The foregoing arrangement renders it impos- 
sible that the Creator would make our hearts hard 
or turn us away from remedy into harm, while at 
the same time it shows that we may apply the cure 
to ourselves, and thus remove an evil and also 
forestall it. Thus we have God doing good to 
us, and we accepting or rejecting it. So it is that 
nearly, if not quite, all the good or evil we may 
experience is on condition of our willingness and 
growing ability to work with God in this plan of 
preservation. A person failing to take proper 
medicine may not recover from his sickness, but 
if he apply the medicine he may recover. He 
may not take his potion because it is disagreeable, 
or he may summon up courage, swallow it, and 
recover his health. But it all lies within himself, 
and his life or death depends wholly upon him- 
self, and not on any influence from God. Now 
if he die, it will be declared at his funeral to be 
the act of Providence; and thus a foolish and 
wicked device would be charged upon the Lord, 
even though it is clear as light that it was by 
neglect to apply the remedy. The state of his 
mind was against himself, and in ignorance 
against the laws of God in regard to health and 
life. So we see that in dangers to health and life, 
it is the person within himself, or others, that are 
chiefly concerned in causing or preventing a hurt- 
ful or salutary result. 



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 

THE BIBLE AND NATURE 

" The doctrines, morals, which must convince, 
For heaven in them appeals to human sense; 
And though they prove not, they confirm the cause, 
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws. 

Dry den. 

I. BOTH EXPRESS DIVINE LAWS 

The Holy Scriptures are the written, and the 
manifestations of nature are the apparent, laws 
of God. They are quite different: but in ob- 
serving or violating either of them, the other is 
affected. Human welfare and happiness are al- 
ways in proportion to our faithful observance of 
them, and we are responsible for the keeping of 
them. Either one of these laws may be made the 
occasion of violating or keeping the other, and 
man possesses the powers and faculties which must 
die of they do not act; and in acting he cannot 
avoid either violating or honoring the law. And 
he, instead of taking one law as a reason for 
keeping the other, makes it the excuse for break- 
ing the latter, and then presumes that Providence 
in some way permitted him to so act. 

There are some performances of an apparatus, 

such as a living creature, which in the order of 

nature must precede the acts of its author. This 

is the case especially when the machinery is 

117 



118 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

already going, like the growing tree or child, and 
the life force which is continuously acting in the 
bodies of all living creatures. Thus, then, God 
does not now start these forces, for he did this 
when he created the plant, the animal, the man. 
Therefore, he might direct the actions and pre- 
serve or destroy the creature. But this he does 
not, because the creature is provided with the 
abilities of directing and caring for itself. So 
any influence upon the creature extraneous to it- 
self is unnecessary and superfluous, except when a 
higher power might aid it, or serve some purpose 
for which the creature is not adapted in itself. 
But the creature itself does not proceed in this 
way. It is only with the rarity of a miracle that 
God does this, as, for similar reasons, he refrains 
from providential interpositions as unnecessary. 

In this sense most of the deeds of mankind go 
before and contrary to the acts of God. And 
hence it may be safe to say that all the interposi- 
tions of God are for remedying evils, just as the 
Scriptures indicate, there being a divine plan 
set forth for this special purpose, and accord- 
ing to this end he is conducting his providential 
administration. He is working now to remove 
the evils which had come upon the world, and thus 
restore it whence his enemies had degraded it, or 
to some other equivalent condition. 

The views now held concerning the providences 
of God present him as he is not, and could not be 
in reason or in his nature. By these notions he 



THE BIBLE AND NATURE 119 

would appear to be petulant and tyrannical, and 
man a hapless victim rather than a chosen bene- 
ficiary of goodness and grace. But, on the con- 
trary, " He knows our frame ; that we are but 
dust " ; that we are born diseased with sin ; needing 
pity and help, correction and subjugation, but not 
abuse, oppression and sorrow. And he knows 
that we suffer: he would bless even the wicked. 



II. GOD DIRECTING OUR WAYS 

Thus far we have endeavored to discover the 
principles of the divine administration. We 
think it has been made clear that God governs the 
world by its laws, and according to his goodness 
and righteousness. If this is the method, then it 
is his habitual way, and any other would be an 
exception to fundamental laws. If a state 
among men were governed by a fixed method, then 
any act above or different from the established 
order would be known as an exception, and no one 
could say that the exceptional cases were the 
habitual rule. But this is quite nearly what the 
popular theology does in regard to the doctrine 
of providential interpositions; but the truth is 
that God simply interposes as occasion may re- 
quire to effect his purpose, with the machinery of 
creation already in motion. The foregoing argu- 
ments are drawn from the things we see, feel, 
and know. 

But now we approach the realm of the un- 



120 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

known : it is that of the influence of God upon the 
minds of his creatures, causing them to do one act 
or another, whether or not we may know that it is 
he who is prompting or leading. To deny this 
is to deny that God is the Lord. This is also the 
realm of faith in God : here we can no longer de- 
pend upon the light of nature or of reason. For 
what can our faith rest upon but the character of 
God? If we cannot believe most implicitly in 
his goodness and righteousness, there is then prac- 
tically no God, and fate and foul spirits control: 
and there is nothing in which we can believe. For 
if Providence is absolute, and does not consider 
either the powers he gave to nature, or the do- 
minion with which he endowed man, we then have 
to live by a degree of faith which is presumption, 
injurious to the understanding, and perplexing to 
all desires we have of living correctly and right- 
eously. 

III. FATALISM AND FREEDOM 

A survey of the entire subject, as set forth in 
the preceding pages, may convince us that the 
world is not under the dominion of an administra- 
tion like that of fatalism, and that our God and 
Saviour would deliver us from superstition and 
idolatry in which the world finds its utmost moral 
degradation. 

The principle underlying all true faith in the 
limitation of providential interpositions is, that 



THE BIBLE AND NATURE 121 

it is inconsistent and injurious to man to do for 
him that which he may be able to do for him- 
self. It would be also fallacious and offen- 
sive in influencing man to recognize his sphere of 
duty and privilege. Devout men have attempted 
to glorify God by minimizing the sphere of man 
and exaggerating the dominion of God in his 
relations with human abilities. For example: A 
person says that he cannot lift his arm unless 
God gave him power at the time. Why should 
he speak thus? For that power had been given 
when the man was created; and if we pause to 
think of the natural results of this provision, it 
would be discovered that a large proportion of 
such acts from one's own ability accomplish very 
many of those events which we are in the habit of 
attributing to the influence of the ways of Provi- 
dence. But that idea is unwarranted by anything 
of which we have knowledge in our own experi- 
ence, or observe in the operations of natural 
forces. But it is largely true in regard to moral 
or religious emotions. God has graciously noted 
our inherited and inherent sinfulness and helpless- 
ness. Men are accustomed, also, to attribute to 
the sanction of Providence those acts and events 
which he uniformly condemns and would pre- 
vent, — such as neglect and crime, which produce 
the evils which are commonly called providential 
events. It may be noted, also, that some indi- 
viduals, and even conferences of clergymen, refer 



132 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

to certain fortunate occurrences as " purely provi- 
dential," thus unwittingly admitting that some 
events are the mingled exertions of God and some- 
thing else, while other events are exclusively by 
his act. In this way the perplexities of a contra- 
dictory faith disturb honest believers in a dogma, 
and cause them to confess their doubts concerning 
all that they have been trying to believe and to 
reconcile with their honest convictions. 

Thus devoted people, believing wrongly in 
man's total depravity of physical and mental 
powers since the Saviour elevated our general con- 
dition, have been endeavoring to magnify the 
power of God by de-rating that of man, arguing 
that man's responsibility is in proportion to his 
helplessness and the severity of Providence. 
These believers are wont to say that one cannot 
lift his arm, beget a thought, or have a desire, 
unless God gives him power at the time, — while 
it is evident that the individuals are existing 
through power already theirs and part of them- 
selves. Then, in connection with this error and 
contrary to it, they limit the acts of Providence 
by maintaining that the good acts and events are 
of God, and the evil ones from Satan. In this, 
they end in the truth, while their premises and 
course of reasoning were errors and contradic- 
tions. So we may see the hand of God only in 
the good which may be available by our con- 
formity to the divine purposes, as set forth in 
the Scriptures. We may love and serve him with 



THE BIBLE AND NATURE 123 

comfort and assurance, since he is still greater 
than Satan. 

" Religion's all; descending from the skies, 
To wretched man, the goddess in her left, 
Holds out this ; and in her right the next." 

Young, 



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 
GOD AND THE HUMAN MIND 

I. THE PERCEPTION OF THE DIVINE 

A pure intellectual conviction or desire is dis- 
connected from and uninfluenced by any physical 
feeling or affection, such, for example, as belief 
in a truth, or an obligation to perform some duty 
toward God. An impression may be made upon 
our minds by way of our affections, such as fear, 
assurance, love, or hate, and these impressions are 
strong or weak as the affection may be lively or 
dull. Impressions are made upon the mind through 
the senses, — the eye sees, the ear hears, the ol- 
factory nerve smells, the mouth tastes, and the en- 
tire system feels : every one of these are concerned 
separately and identically. And as all mental 
affections excite to action, so each movement may 
be the beginning of a series of deeds producing 
great evil or good. 

Now, it is much more likely that the pure men- 
tal impressions may be of God, than those which 
may be made through the affections and senses. 
The pure intellectual contact is made without 
anything between the mind and the angel, spright, 
fiend, devil, or God, as the case may be. These 
pure emotions emanate from a superior or spirit- 
ual source, seemingly disconnected from the phys- 
ical, but not always unrelated thereto. This is 
124 



GOD AND THE HUMAN MIND 125 

the realm wherein reside the most intense reali- 
ties, and jet the greatest perils to human under- 
standing. Herein God reveals himself, and delu- 
sion is immanent: a region of greatest security, 
where God may be actually known, and of great 
incertitude as to the identiy of the cause or being 
affecting our minds. 



II. IMPRESSIONS OF ALL QUESTIONS 

The most momentous of all questions that can 
disturb man is how, or by what means, can we 
assure ourselves as to which impressions come 
from God? There are two ways by which God 
may be recognized in affecting the minds of man- 
kind. One is that of assured direct intercourse 
with him : in this he would needs touch us that we 
may be sure that it is he. To secure this it requires 
great sincerity and righteousness in the person 
who would be sure to receive and understand the 
purpose of that sacred touch; and we may add 
that the mind needs to be serene, and com- 
posed. To this state, capable of recognizing the 
divine influence, very few fully attain. We may 
be assured, also, that God effects certain prompt- 
ings upon our minds, by the fact that they are on 
the side of righteousness and goodness. These 
qualities must be known by us definitely in order 
to distinguish between them and other moral feel- 
ings by which we might be influenced. This 
means of recognition of divine impulses is not 



126 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

more by direct communion with God than by plain 
common sense and deliberate discernment of what 
God might or might not do according to his char- 
acter. 

In the second way, God may influence our 
minds without our being aware of it, or becom- 
ing able to realize it. Herein he works his sover- 
eign will and carries on his purposes, but never 
contrary to his paternal character. And let it 
be recorded that he cannot lead or force a loyal 
subject to do or incur an evil. On the other 
hand, it is remarkable how we are sometimes led 
out of, or away from, impending evils by what 
seems to be an unseen hand, — too good to be 
merely earthly, human, natural, or mortal, but 
above and more than we could con j ecture : it must 
have been the mind and hand of God. 

III. THEORIES RECONCILED 

However, the fact still stands that God does not 
ignore human and other agencies, nor their full 
measure of power and limits. Some seem to think 
that God goes ahead and arranges everything, as 
it were, and in that way causes everything that 
happens to occur precisely as it does eventuate. 
This leaves out all agencies, and we become sim- 
ply tools in the divine hand. Others think that 
God and his creatures are working together, each 
for itself and inside of certain limits, sometimes 
agreeing and sometimes disagreeing. In certain 



GOD AND THE HUMAN MIND 127 

circumstances and in the usual course of the 
world, this notion seems to be correct; but where 
God has some special purpose, all things are com- 
pelled to work out to fulfill each design. There 
are still others who think that occurrences take 
place by mere accident, or as things are influenced 
by their happening to stand in certain influen- 
tial relations with one another. And this condi- 
tion of things seems, also, to be true in the 
habitual course of providences, changed by varia- 
ble circumstances in our world, as we observe day 
by day. 

Here, reconciling these theories, we have an ap- 
parent recognition of the doctrine of this essay, 
which is that God, m governing the world, always 
lets law take its course and produce its effects 
according to the circumstances, except in any case 
in which he has a purpose to which natural laws 
should be subordinate. In the common course of 
our world, he influences the minds of creatures to 
do various acts by which he works out of a mesh 
of temporal things some special purpose from be- 
ginning to end, accomplishing his sovereign will. 

IV. PRIVILEGES AND DUTIES 

A general view over creation, in all its parts 
and over man wherever he may be and to whatever 
he may be related, may afford the only full 
foundation upon which to build a complete theory 
of his privileges and duties in reference to provi- 



128 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

dential occurrences. Any system of government 
which does not include all things, and does not 
give due prominence to all departments, must of 
necessity be either special to one or more of them, 
or defective. So, while the Bible is a perfect and 
special revelation, it does not include all that may 
and must be known. It does not explain the op- 
erations of the laws of nature, and it scarcely 
hints as to how God operates in nature, and with 
it, in providential dealings. Therefore, to know 
him, it is necessary that every part of nature be 
a revelation for itself, and that men may be con- 
sidered as dominant over nature, in order to effect 
most of the events commonly called providential. 
It is conceded by all readers of the Bible that 
it does not attempt to explain how, and by what 
means, the forces of nature operate; nor does it 
designate any difference between God's direct acts 
on natural forces and their operations when left 
to themselves. Hence it is reasonable to suppose 
that there is a distinct difference between those 
events which we observe everywhere as effected by 
natural law, and those by the direct act of Provi- 
dence, the latter being infrequent and often seem- 
ing incidental. Accordingly, there are innumer- 
able evil events which, through natural laws, men 
avoid and utterly forestall. There are millions of 
evils produced only by certain adverse conditions 
which men could remove. Providence does not 
bring the evils after the conditions which give oc- 
casion for them are removed. For example: A 



GOD AND THE HUMAN MIND 129 

city or a locality loses many people by typhoid 
ailments, smallpox, diphtheria, spinal meningitis, 
and so on. By the revelations which these dis- 
eases make of danger, suffering and death, the 
people are forced to remove the causes, and the re- 
sult is that the awful hand of death is stayed ; but 
if the people would have been more precautious 
and prevented the causes beforehand, none need 
have died of those diseases, thus proving that not 
Providence primarily, but man in priority, should 
have interposed. 

The same anticipation of God's purpose is due 
also to suggestions made by those moral wrongs 
by which the poor and defenceless are left to suf- 
fer and virtually driven into degradation and 
crime, — not by the will or providential assign- 
ment of the just and merciful God, but by the 
failure of man, in acting in this, the administra- 
tive stage of his government. We may say, 
for instance, that thousands are born and reared 
in ignorance and vice, which God would relieve 
only by the common sentiment of humanity and 
the great but unheeded fraternal spirit of Jesus 
Christ. 

Then, there are those who could relieve and re- 
store myriads of those in these inferior circum- 
stances. Many such have received favors by 
which they have become affluent and happy, but 
neglect those who are now in the evil situations 
in which they may have once suffered. And many 
who do not know how to " kill time," being ut- 



130 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

terly idle, do nothing for the unfortunate, but 
rather despise and rebuff them, and, being 
wealthy beyond possibility of ever exhausting 
their means, withhold charity and hoard up their 
millions, which become a veritable burden to them. 
This vain course is a mere burlesque before the 
laws of health and happiness; for unless these 
people could become as much larger than common- 
sized individuals, as their riches are above the 
property commonly held by men, they must in- 
evitably surfeit themselves, in most cases, to death, 
and sink into a merited perdition that much ear- 
lier. This occurs, likewise, on moral grounds, 
because what any person may possess in this 
world belongs to God, inasmuch as there is a 
God and Judge of both the quick and the dead. 

With the diseases and wants of mankind pre- 
vailing, as remarked above, can any person in his 
senses suppose that these unwarrantable condi- 
tions could exist by the will and influence of 
Providence? But why is it that God permits 
these unequal conditions, and does not deliver all 
that suffer and are oppressed? There is one 
great reason, at least, that most concerns the 
whole family of man, namely : that under the laws 
by which the world is governed and improved, 
God has determined that man shall relieve the 
world of its disorders, and establish and perfect 
everything that is good. 



GOD AND THE HUMAN MIND 131 

V. GOD IN NATURE 

This theory of Divine Providence may seem, to 
a spiritual person, to place natural things between 
God and man, and thus form a wall of separation ; 
but it may be correctly replied that the Creator 
does communicate with his creatures through his 
works, but not always to the extent commonly ac- 
cepted. This position, we believe, has been estab- 
lished in the preceding pages, and is justified by 
what we see and experience daily. 

The devout reader of these arguments should 
remember that the Holy Scriptures declare that 
God is a spirit, and they who would serve or wor- 
ship him must worship him in spirit and in truth, 
and that God is spiritually discerned. It is, 
therefore, one thing to discern him through spir- 
itual things, and another to know him in the 
course of nature; that is, it is quite different to 
realize God in religion and in nature; for in the 
former he appears to the good only as love, while 
in the latter we experience happiness or suffering, 
peace or calamity in strange inequality, as if it 
were another God rather than ours of goodness 
and mercy. 

This difference between what God is really in 
the spiritual or religious sense, and what he seems 
to be, but is not, in natural things, tends to exalt 
him for his goodness in the spiritual, and to re- 
vere him for his fatherly but mysterious care of 
us amid the world's disorders, which he is correct- 



132 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

ing by methods in nature, whether they be quick 
or slow in action, or faithfully or unfaithfully 
attended to by man. 



VI. AN INFERENCE 

Our theory of the divine administration af- 
fords suitable and abundant support to every 
virtue possible to man ; for this theory is in entire 
harmony with what we would reasonably expect a 
good and righteous God to be. It clears his 
goodness and righteousness of all grounds of 
doubt and mystery, and enables the wise and de- 
vout believer more nearly than ever before to see 
God face to face, and to hold open communion 
with him. This theory justifies its own truthful- 
ness above all other theories by placing man in his 
true natural relations with God and his providen- 
tial administration over the events of the world. 

" Man hath his daily work of body or mind, 
Appointed, which declares his dignity, 
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways ; 

While other animals inactive range, 
And of their doings God takes no account.' ' 

Milton. 



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 

OPPOSITIONS TO PROVIDENCE 

I. SUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION ADMITTED 

The Scriptures declare that there are great op- 
positions to God and his purposes, and that these 
obtain a remarkable success. This must be ad- 
mitted or we cannot escape a denial of the divine 
declarations. The theory that Providence actu- 
ates every event is in direct opposition to this doc- 
trine. On account of this successful opposition 
to the purposes of God, we are compelled to admit 
the mighty power of these oppositions and the 
consequent limitations of the exercise of the power 
of God, and the reasons why he refrains from 
forcing the accomplishment of his purposes. For 
example, it is declared that God would have all 
men to be saved, and yet very few are saved. 
This failure, moreover, is effected against the 
abundant gracious helps provided in redemption 
for this express purpose, and all persons are 
urged to accept the helps and do so, but are not 
saved. 

II. FAULTS AGAINST PROVIDENCE 

So, also, is it the purpose of God that men should 
be merciful and benevolent toward one another; 
and yet they deprive others of personal and prop- 
133 



134 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

erty rights, and even inflict unspeakable cruelties 
with such complete success as if in heaven, or on 
the earth, there were no dissent or forbiddance 
thereof, — as if cruelty were as good as mercy, 
and wickedness equal to righteousness. 

Likewise is it, — in all appearance, — with those 
faults of ignorance and carelessness whereby 
often the greatest calamities occur; for God has 
constructed the minds and feelings of his crea- 
tures that they may be aware of dangers and be 
capable of using the innumerable means of pre- 
vention. And yet it seems that God may not, or 
cannot, for some hidden reason, create alarm in 
their minds or open a way for their escape. 

Nothing throughout all the range of observa- 
tion and experience is so apparent as that there 
has been a great struggle between good and evil 
throughout the world until now, and that evil has 
mostly prevailed over good. If, too, we consider 
that God is always upon the side of that which is 
good, it would seem as if his enemies were on the 
stronger side, although the purpose of God is to 
" subdue all things unto himself," which in due 
time he will most assuredly accomplish. 

It is, therefore, only a matter of postponement 
with God, but this fact does not explain why, at 
this era, the benevolent purposes of Providence 
are delayed and thwarted, for the time at least, or 
why, in our world, there are so many wrongs, so 
many fatalities, so much suffering, which could 
be remedied at once, — there being so many ways 



OPPOSITIONS TO PROVIDENCE 135 

and means sustained and effected by the power of 
God, according to the excellency of his goodness 
and tender compassion. Therefore it is plain 
that God's purposes are retarded by present oppo- 
sitions which he would overcome. 



III. HINDRANCES AND PROVIDENCE 

God declares his purposes, and announces their 
hindrance, but it should be observed that he thus 
affirms in relation only to the doings of intelli- 
gent creatures, whose moral accountability rec- 
ognizes their freedom to do good or evil, even 
directly against his will and purposes, as the Holy 
Scriptures most pre-eminently lament. 

Thus many events, both good and evil, are set 
forth in Scripture as the result of the fact of 
men being positively independent of and against 
the settled purpose of God. How vain and un- 
just it is to attribute such conditions to Divine 
Providence! And yet most, if not all, of the 
accidents and social and mechanical evils which 
occur are effected by the wickedness or ineffi- 
ciency of mankind. God could forcibly change 
this, but morally he cannot. So, on the other 
hand, it may be well to say that all the divine 
purposes unrelated to the disorders of the world 
and the moral freedom of man, were marked with 
the most distinct and positive evidence of fulfill- 
ment: we mean the plan of creation and of the 
laws by which everything was to exist and oper- 



136 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

ate. But we are referring also to the original 
creation, before sin and disorder came into the 
works of God, — commonly known as the pri- 
mordial or unfallen state. In like manner, in 
considering his providential administration, we 
simply confine the discussion to this present state 
of the universe, and inquire why Providence ab- 
stains from or does not relieve the miseries, adjust 
the unequal conditions of mankind, arrest and 
punish the wicked, and vindicate and reward the 
righteous now as well as at some future unknown 
time. 

Some man may say that the Scriptures declare 
that this is reserved for the future state ; but with 
little qualification the Scriptures of both the Old 
and the New Testaments declare and promise it 
in the present world. Consequently this delay 
and apparent failure of purposes is in virtue of 
some conditions of his law and the relations which 
intelligent and responsible creatures hold to the 
accomplishment of divine purposes, either to fa- 
cilitate or retard them. This is just what the 
present condition of the world suggests — what 
actually takes place, and what the Holy Scrip- 
tures presuppose and declare. We must ex- 
amine the ways of God if we would understand his 
purposes enough to know him, and work together 
with him to relieve earthly woes, and hold him 
without hindrance in our most loving and rever- 
ential regard. 



OPPOSITIONS TO PROVIDENCE 137 

IV. IMMUTABILITY AND MAN 

We may assume that all God's laws must be as 
unchangeable as he is himself, because they are 
of him and are the outward expression of his own 
nature and attributes. Every effect is as its 
cause. So long as a cause exists, the effects will 
remain the same; but if the object at which the 
cause may tend be removed or changed, the effect 
will be obviated or made different. So, as the 
conditions upon which any effect might lodge may 
be affected by any other occurrence or by any 
agent, in that much may God's purposes be for- 
warded or retarded. Herein is the sphere of the 
creature, as God seems to have previously in- 
tended, and covenanted, and as the Eighth Psalm 
and other passages intelligently indicate. Thus 
a storm, an earthquake, a disease, a conflagration, 
hurts not those who may be alert, and escape from 
or be provided with means to avoid the cause. So 
God, by provisions already made to obviate and 
remove the ills of our world by the agency of man, 
either fails or succeeds in his goodly purposes in 
proportion as man succeeds in his remedial serv- 
ices : thus the providences of God become as those 
of man. 

The sacredness of God's laws and their inevit- 
able unchangeableness are the only considerations 
which may account for his non-interposition to 
correct wrongs and relieve misery ; for we can but 
note that oppressions of the most abominable 



138 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

kinds, and sufferings most intolerable, imposed 
without any necessity and by the unspeakable in- 
humanity of men, have been allowed through long 
periods, while the cries of distress have not been an- 
swered, and the oppressors left undisturbed by any 
punishment or even interference upon the part of 
man or God. This, indeed, should be considered 
as a great mystery, as compared with the good- 
ness and righteousness and the essential ability 
of God to deliver those who thus suffer. Indeed, 
if there were no other explanation, it would be 
impossible to believe in God any further than to 
acknowledge his existence and his insensibility to 
the miseries of his creatures. But when we con- 
sider all laws, both those which may afflict and 
those which may benefit, as necessarily unchange- 
able, and remember that all evils may be over- 
come by the genius of man — every evil having 
a remedy according to the provision which the 
Creator made for that purpose — and note that 
man is free from constraint or hindrance as to the 
good or evil he may do, then it is that we discern 
why habitually God omits to interpose to relieve 
distress and to deliver those who are imperilled. 

That Providence does not habitually deliver the 
afflicted as if it were intended not to do so, is one 
of the most self-evident facts of which man can 
acquire the knowledge ; and yet, strange as this is, 
men and creeds seem practically oblivious to that 
wondrous increment in the providential adminis- 
tration of the affairs of mankind. 



OPPOSITIONS TO PROVIDENCE 139 

V. INTERPOSITIONS WITHHELD 

In order to develop the truth in this remarkable 
state of the affairs of our world, we may be per- 
mitted, and for the sake of undisguised truth 
should feel obliged, to present a brief picture of 
events as they have occurred until now — and are 
still progressing in the same manner. 

A slight acquaintance with the world's history 
causes astonishment, for it is mainly an account 
of successful wickedness and unrelieved sorrows. 
Oppressions, cruelties, continuous wars and car- 
nage, pestilences, and elemental catastrophies 
have made the world a carnival of wrong and 
suffering apparently unrelieved by providential 
interpositions. These evils have been alleviated 
by the services of mankind, unhelped and un- 
hindered, and apparently without extraneous aid, 
except the demands of necessity or the accidents 
of suggestive circumstances, and not so much be- 
cause of virtuous impulses; for often avarice 
seems to act mercifully — but then its eye is on 
booty. Enterprise removes hurtful things, and 
is meanwhile seeking commercial gain. And 
Providence, in his righteousness, takes little part, 
though human passion and appetite may assert 
themselves. The abstention of Providence is in- 
stanced in cases like the following: A father is 
disabled by another person's fault. This leaves 
his family destitute of support; his children are 
unprotected from vicious influences, and it may 



140 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

entail all manner of disadvantages on his de- 
scendants for generations continuously. The 
most effective remedies may be applied by his 
family for his recovery; worthy people beseech 
Providence to restore him to health, and yet, as 
a rule, the efficient and proper means of securing 
the blessings of God fail. The man dies, al- 
though there exists every reason why he should 
be spared. If this outcome were only occasional, 
instead of being the rule, and recovery of health 
were the rule, we could then see the free hand of 
Providence, according to what the false doctrine 
of Divine Providence claims to be the fact. 

Take another example of frequent occurrence: 
A child is lost in the woods and consumed by wild 
beasts. The parents and friends, even the in- 
different strangers, seek day and night for the 
lost one. Men and women in separate parties 
search the forest and mountains day and night, 
hungry, cold and drenched with rain and sleet. 
They have blown horns, rung bells, fired guns, in 
order to attract the attention of the child, and 
they have most piteously besought God to direct 
them to the lost child. Any creature, man or 
beast, at all capable of compassion, would have 
braved all dangers and endured the greatest of 
suffering to save the sobbing, dying child. But 
God, neither by impressions on their minds nor 
by signs or tokens or any other means, gives the 
slightest aid to deliver from this great distress 
and horror. Now, because just such cases as this, 



OPPOSITIONS TO PROVIDENCE 141 

and parallel ones of other kinds, do happen and 
no deliverance from God is effected, we cannot 
escape the conclusion that as God is good and 
gracious, therefore there are some causes for this 
abstention of providential administration, which 
we herein made plain, according to facts univers- 
ally known but overlooked. 

Imagine persons tortured through long hor- 
rors for no reason except the savage cruelty of 
the torturers, with no relief but death, — men 
flayed alive, hung head down until their lives de- 
parted, and no kindly Providence came to deliver. 
The same omission of providential relief is as 
common as any occurrence of little importance. 
All classes of people and other living creatures 
are left to suffer similar distresses, and to die 
as if death from any cause were considered as 
no more than any other incident however unim- 
portant. An impartial view of these occurrences 
among us can but confirm our theory. Moreover, 
the same causes and circumstances which destroy 
the life of a beast are alike fatal to man. Acci- 
dents, sickness and premature death are common 
alike to a savage beast or to a meritorious human 
being. And these events are quite alike, all over 
the world: germs of disease, venom of reptiles, 
accidents, universally produce the same disastrous 
results, and only sometimes by God's direct per- 
sonal infliction. A really correct history of the 
course of events, small and great, viewed inde- 
pendently of the prejudice of what we have been 



142 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

accustomed wrongly to believe, could do nothing 
less than prove the correctness of these declara- 
tions, namely: that man, supplied as he is with 
remedies for all temporal evils, is appointed to 
act habitually as the agent of Providence, and 
that God interposes, mainly, where man may not 
be capable or become capable of effecting his 
benevolent purposes. 



CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 

THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 

" O ! open my dungeon door, 

Let nature lead me, blind of eyes; 
If haply I may feel once more, 

The pillars of the steadfast skies." 

Lucretia Noble. 

I. PROPER ACCESSORIES 

The ministrative character of Providence in- 
dicates that we should know the nature, place, 
and use of remedies as accessories to the purposes 
of the benevolent providences of God. Neverthe- 
less, the Lord may graciously answer our prayer 
through his own direct power, and remove the 
evil; but this is a rare case, as we have already 
remarked in referring to reasons why he inter- 
poses only occasionally and specially. For if 
God has supplied us with remedies and helps in 
our afflictions, and intends that by our efficient 
employment of them they shall effect the cure, 
then every time his direct interposition should ac- 
complish the same result, it would decrease the 
importance of the remedies and the providential 
services of mankind. Indeed, a certain frequency 
of this substitution of the direct healing power 
of God for the remedial agency of nature and 
man, would effect a reversal of the very apparent 
plan of God in administering the affairs of our 
143 



144 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

world. He most surely does depend upon man 
to remedy the temporal ills of this world with the 
use of the abundant means with which he had 
already furnished all departments of creation. 
It may be safe to say that had we been, or were 
we now, true to the obligations which this order 
of Providence requires, millions of the dead might 
be alive and happy to-day. It is only when our 
piety causes us to realize the great sacredness of 
our mission on the earth, and the natural as well 
as the spiritual relations we hold to God, that our 
lives can be, in the fullest sense, religious and 
beneficent. 

Our motives, formed in ignorance, may be pure, 
while their direction and objects may be prejudi- 
cial to obtaining answers to our prayers ; for how 
can a man expect his prayer to secure showers on 
his field, while just over the fence his neighbor's 
field may wither and scorch? Or how can a man 
succeed in his prayers for health, while he lives 
in careless disregard of the means of health? Or 
how can a person secure a clean heart, while his 
prayers ascend from the company of unholy 
thoughts and tainted conversations? We may 
please God by adjusting ourselves naturally and 
spiritually to the things which concern him and 
ourselves unitedly, and in like manner we may 
secure the good and avoid the evils that between 
himself and us are providential. 



THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 145 

II. PROVIDENCE OF MAN 

A basal consideration in examining the cause 
or reason why God does not interpose in every case 
of need, and at once effect the restoration of the 
world — as the Scriptures declare is his purpose 

— is quite apparent in the condition in which the 
world now is, in the means at hand, and in the 
slow and natural method as manifested in the 
operations of the numerous laws governing the 
vast variety of his creatures. 

A very tropical reason is apparent in the fact 
that our world is in a deranged state, or out of 
a harmonious adjustment one thing with another; 
and another reason is that it is in an unwholesome 
condition. Both of these considerations need to 
be considered briefly. 

That nature is out of adjustment, one thing 
with another, is evidenced in all departments of 
our visible creation; and that it awaits the rem- 
edial powers of man is also most apparent. If we 
consider the soil of the earth, whose products are 
necessary for sustaining life, we find almost all 
earths deficient, and sometimes destitute, of the ele- 
ments of fertility, and out of due proportion be- 
tween these elements ; and even though the elements 

— nitrogen, phosphoric acid,- and potash, the 
principal constituents of fertility — were in equal 
proportions, yet in many instances there is a 
deficiency or excess of moisture, heat, or cold. 
And now, unless these conditions are remedied by 



146 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

man, through care of the forests for irrigation, 
and other means possible to him to supply what 
is deficient, these unequal conditions will remain 
as Providence has left them for thousands of 
years past and gone. This is the case with every 
natural object — none is perfect, all need im- 
provement, and are waiting for relief by the dele- 
gated but tardy hand of man to achieve the 
providential triumph. 

We find the same disagreements especially in 
the bodies and minds of mankind ; for it is a very 
rare thing to find — if indeed it is ever found — 
that all the organs and their functions are in due 
proportion, in equal strength and health, for each 
other. The remedy in these departments of ani- 
mal life are left mostly to the law of heredity, 
subject to the fickle but automatic affections of 
marital and progenital selection, in which, though 
nature and wisdom and the divine will protest, yet 
the passional instincts of mankind may prevail 
over the duty of selection of mates ; or the remedy 
may be found in another prerogative of our race, 
which is that of culture and care of physical and 
mental powers, according to the laws of health 
and development as previously provided by our 
Creator. 



III. REMEDIES EFFECTUAL BY MAN 

The same order and means employed by man 
are efficient also with the moral state and consti- 



THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 147 

tution of the human race ; for here are moral dis- 
cernment of right and wrong, the sensibility of 
conscience, the fear of consequences, and the de- 
sire for moral peace and happiness. These neces- 
sitate activity for existence and safety, and, exer- 
cised through fear, desire, love, hate, pleasure and 
pain, they leave no room for additional impulses 
from any other source than from within the body 
of the creature itself. So the integrity and even 
the existence of the creature could admit only 
those providential acts which were necessary to 
sustain or replace its own power. For to effect 
any purpose of the Creator otherwise, when the 
creature possesses ability, there is no interposition 
of Providence, because it would be superfluous. 
Thus Providence does not do or supply that which 
he had provided for in the original endowments 
of the creature. Surely it is greater to have 
made a creature that needs less of interposition 
than one that requires more. It would seem that 
Providence limits his interpositions by the nature 
given and by the conditions upon which he has 
made the integrity and existence of each of his 
creatures to depend. If a person has inherited a 
robust constitution, the laws of health are suffi- 
cient to maintain them, if they are not violated; 
if one has disease, the laws of health and re- 
cuperation work for his restoration, but appar- 
ently unassisted by Providence except rarely, be- 
cause the remedies and human service are sufficient 
except rarely. God does not make up for man's 



148 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

neglect and defeat his plan of the world by such 
intervention. 



IV. NATURAL PROVISIONS SUFFICIENT 

The adjustments and purification of creation 
from the present condition into a better are 
abundantly provided for in the substances and 
capabilities of things in our world. But ages 
have past, and where these repairs have not been 
made by man, the world remains just as it was, 
as if no other power could or would interpose to 
effect any relief for this untoward condition. 
Every advance of knowledge brings to view some 
new properties in nature which suggest the un- 
limited extent of the unequal condition of cre- 
ation, and expose to us some new remedies and 
better adjustments that must be made effectual in 
order to heal the maladies and to complete the 
organization of the elements which constitute and 
are necessary to the best state of which this sphere 
may be capable. 

Tendencies to this perfection and harmony are 
inherent in all substances, as we have noted in for- 
mer pages in naming the properties inherent in 
nature. For instance, things are created in pairs 
and are endowed with the instinct of union with 
each other, which increases their powers. This 
may be seen in the forces of animal and chemical 
attraction and repulsion of pairs which may or 
may not agree. So also is it in one kind of 



THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 149 

substance seeking to get together by itself. Of 
this we have an example even in coarse materials 
thereby affording a stronger evidence of this fact. 
It is shown in a heap of several kinds of clay and 
sand, all mingled in a pile of four or five tons 
weight. To-morrow or next day dig perpendicu- 
larly and throw away from the heap, and you 
may see against the exposed side that each kind 
of soil has drawn into a layer by itself, though all 
of each kind of earth has not been competent to 
gather from portions of the heap that may have 
been too far apart for the strength of attraction 
or affinity working between them. 

This motive and adjusting force between things 
of like nature, and the repulsions between things 
of unlike nature, seeking adjustment and ultimate 
harmony throughout creation, pertain also to the 
affections and mental faculties of all living 
creatures, and constitute the beginning and con- 
tinuous impulse of every act which the creature 
may perform, except wherein God may contravene 
the natural impulses and act directly on these im- 
pulses for some rare and special purpose. But 
more deeply seated and essential still are those 
spontaneous forces of healing, repair, and growth 
which animate every creature. We may note that 
remarkable affinity subsisting first between an or- 
gan and the remedy which pertains to it, rather 
than to any other organ, and secondly, between a 
remedy and a disease or disorder as a specific 
cure for that particular ailment, rather than for 



150 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

any other. Not only so, but it seems to be at- 
tested that a specific remedy seeks, as it were, the 
organ affected ; for podophytin and other hypatic 
remedies do not diffuse themselves over the entire 
body, but tend toward and find the liver and or- 
gans in sympathy with it, as in the case of a 
disease and its remedy. 

Is not this relation of forces purely one of 
fitness, and not force by decree of God on every 
occasion? It it were wholly by God's act, the 
properties in things would be of no importance. 
But if a cure depend upon the kind and quality of 
the remedy, then Providence is less concerned, and 
there is proper dependence upon the fidelity and 
skill with which man administers it, whether by or 
against the present will of God; for certain it is 
that not only has man the liberty to do as he may 
choose, but this privilege rises to the eminence of 
a prerogative. So from some consideration — 
whatever it may be — God may not control some 
of those strongest conditions which effect events, 
good and evil, which the creeds of absolutists call 
providential, as if in an absolute and arrogant 
manner God had brought them about. 

V. PROVIDENCE IN RESERVE 

In regard to the disarranged condition of 
earthly things, we may say that if they were 
put in mutual relations peace and prosperity 
would flourish accordingly. This process is go- 



THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 151 

ing on, composing and purifying the world. 
Diseases and accidents are being remedied. But 
mankind is effecting these beneficial results. If 
any one says it is God who effects it, because he 
it is who prompted the workers, we assent, but 
claim that it was far back of certain commercial 
considerations that formed the motive in many 
cases. Earthly considerations exerted influence 
upon the workers. And these were between God 
and the things to be done. Any or all of these 
agencies may have prompted to the enterprise; 
but man did the work. As it were, nature may 
have called, may have desired to submit to the 
helpful services of mankind. God called also. 
But man could refuse: he might be willing. If 
he ceases the work stops. If he oppose, God can 
establish his work: man can tear it down. So we 
may say that God in effect only suggested. He 
did not compel, he did not excuse. But, all the 
same, man pleased himself and had his way. 

Man controls the lightning, which believers in 
an absolute providential government of our world 
were wont to say was a pure evil, or a manifesta- 
tion of the wrath of God; but now, with keener 
intellect, men turn it to many useful purposes, 
whereas ignorance and wickedness could cause it 
to work injury. Thus our race could proceed in 
evil by not knowing the purport of creation's 
powers, nor appreciating the fatherly relation of 
God towards all his creatures, even to the worst 
of them. 



152 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

VI. MAN NOT PROVIDENCE 

Man possesses moral power to will and to do, 
as thoroughly as he may desire, in regard to any 
other person. This ability is as free as any 
other, since the universal grace of God in Christ 
the Saviour has established a state of relief and 
help. This state is adapted to the great 
endowment of free moral agency. This available 
condition of our race renders us capable of acting 
so as to give occasion for God to change his pur- 
poses, and adjust his administration to the 
changed conditions which our good or evil conduct 
may have brought about. On the other hand, it 
would seem erroneous to the devout believer, who 
considers chiefly the majesty of God and ignores 
changeable conditions which he regards, to sup- 
pose any change in God's purpose, although ac- 
cording to the law of nature one thing succeeds 
another, and one purpose may also succeed an- 
other, while the first is conditional and the next 
absolute. In this sense, we may say that God 
changes his purposes, but not his character. It 
being impossible for him to lie, it must also be 
impossible for him to be cruel; he being good 
and merciful, impossible for him to ordain that 
the good shall suffer, as they do, the same suffer- 
ings as do the wicked, he being just. But yet 
these indiscriminate occurrences are, indeed, the 
real method which Providence permits. They are 
not caused or occasioned by him: they occur be- 



THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 15S 

cause of the disorders of nature, and proceed from 
primordial and unalterable conditions which sus- 
tain the world while it is in disorder, and are also 
the means for its restitution and perfection, 
through remedies and adjustments effected by 
services of intelligent creatures. The recession 
of divine power will thus be obviated by the 
changes effected through the redeemer in the 
moral world, by co-operation of man, as the 
Scriptural plan seems plainly to declare and for 
which it provides. 

VII. AFFLICTIONS AND NATURAL CAUSES 

If it be said in reply to the above assertions that 
God's goodness will appear hereafter, in the now 
unknown benefits of our present sufferings, and in 
the occasions they may have afforded for the 
virtues of resignation, patience, and exalted aspi- 
rations, then we may declare, at once, that this 
is to suppose that God cannot benefit man except 
he resort to those severe means which infringe 
upon his goodness and righteousness in this pres- 
ent world. 

We have personally known several persons of 
deepest piety who were afflicted for many years 
with the intolerable pains and disability of acute 
rheumatism. They were unable to enjoy any 
comfort, longed in vain for divine worship with 
the congregation, were a perpetual care and bur- 
den upon others, desired death and prayed for 



154 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

it, and yet were compelled to suffer still longer. 
Did our Heavenly Father inflict those woes; did 
he continue them; was he unmoved by the virtues 
and prayers of these, his faithful servants? Or 
was it not because of the present condition of 
creation, and the laws of nature operating by ne- 
cessity from cause to effect, that made it impossi- 
ble, in the nature of the case, for him to ignore the 
laws by which these rheumatics inherited and re- 
tained their maladies? 



VIII. AFFLICTIONS AS INCIDENTS 

When afflictions are said to be sent by the Lord, 
we should not fail to consider how natural and ac- 
cidental causes operate, often against his will, as 
in cases of sickness, accidents, and the perverse- 
ness of creatures in violating the laws of safety. 
These evils may thus appear, in the sense stated 
above, as unavoidable on the part of Providence, 
and consequently any future advantage because 
of them is through pure compassion of God in 
bringing good out of an unavoidable evil, and 
indeed an unnecessary affliction, aside from the 
mistakes and perverseness of his creatures, asso- 
ciated with the disorders of our world. Or, in 
other words, inasmuch as afflictions are in the 
world, and upon saints as upon sinners, and on 
the former by cruel persecutions, therefore these 
evils, endured devotedly for Christ's sake, should 



THE PLACE OF REMEDIES 155 

secure great future rewards. But they present 
the opportunity only; they are not necessary to 
produce, or to effect, great virtues. For if the 
disciples were animated by motives high enough 
to really honor God, these would be spontaneous 
and need not depend upon suffering to create or 
stir them up. But these sufferings, borne for 
God's sake, have become less as Christianity and 
the civilization arising therefrom prevail the 
more. So men are the unnecessary victims of 
those evils because they were already ardent de- 
votees of the Gospel, at their option, as has al- 
ways been the case, and not because God had ab- 
solutely ordained them. If God had appointed 
these persecutions for the apostles of Jesus at 
that day, and does not for us of this day, how 
could such partiality be reconciled with his good- 
ness and righteousness? It would be simply im- 
possible with him, even as the irresponsible Cre- 
ator; but these irrational persecutions do comport 
precisely with the ignorance, bigotry and essential 
wickedness of mankind. They existed, without 
God: he forced them into profit for his saints. 
They were incidental to fortuitous circumstances. 
Accordingly, in interpreting any passage of 
Scripture declaring that afflictions are profitable, 
for a " weight of Glory," it is necessary to re- 
member that the well-disposed do not need them, 
and that transgressors may be more surely re- 
stored by the persuasives of wisdom and goodness. 



156 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

Hence the world's indiscriminate sufferings are 
begotten by the world, and the remedies and res- 
torations are from God. 

Nothing can grow and reach its highest condi- 
tion by subjection to injurious influences any 
more than a man in princely circumstances could 
rise to a more refined and chivalrous nature by 
being compelled to live with and adopt the con- 
dition of the degraded. But, on the opposite 
hand, his greater exaltation and superior devotion 
to all virtues would be secured by his being placed 
in refining circumstances, in peaceable relations, 
with noble suggestions. This is the method of 
God in the gospel and the church; for both in 
accord in moral doctrine and discipline present 
all the motives to a human being to cause him to 
aspire after higher things and companionships. 
This is God's prime method, while afflictions are 
simply the natural incidents of this world. 

Man not being compelled to be either good or 
bad, consistently with this he is not goaded to 
fortune or misfortune by the providence of God. 
God being good and gracious would gently touch 
our sensibilities and kindly lead us away from the 
evil and up to the possession of greatest good. 
To whomsoever this method should be unavail- 
ing, he would apply means so selected as to appeal 
to all the hard and tender sensibilities of human 
nature. This method manifests the wisdom and 
mercifulness of God. But our common afflictions 
simply exhibit the uncontrolled and froward dis- 
orders of the world. 



CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 

MAN THE RESPONSIBLE AGENT OF 
PROVIDENCE 

I. NATURE WITH PROVIDENCE 

We have seen that in all circumstances man 
has ability to control, modify, and procure ef- 
fects such as he may desire, and from conditions 
of things as he or the Creator may have framed 
them. Everywhere the state of the world and the 
diversity of established conditions show that while 
nature and its laws remain the same, yet beyond 
this there are active and intelligent agencies, from 
the Creator down below man, between whom there 
is contention. 

This fact, fully recognized and provided for, 
constitutes the substance of the Holy Scriptures. 
The erroneous views concerning it have suggested 
the task of writing this essay, in order to discover, 
if possible, how far the creature may be efficient 
in procuring the good or evil, and to what degree 
Providence may supersede him in effecting benefi- 
cent results, or in procuring evil and calamitous 
afflictions throughout creation. 

Basing our judgment on the great principles 
in nature and those which God declares concern- 
ing himself, we may be able to discriminate 
between the more momentous events, and discern 
Divine Providence as distinct from natural causes 
157 



158 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

and intelligent agencies. In like manner we be- 
come acquainted with God's character and pur- 
poses, somewhat, by what he may be supposed to 
do, but more by the revelations which creation in 
its various departments may indicate. 



II. SCRIPTURE ON PROVIDENCE 

Thus we take the Bible as a full and exclusive 
revelation of God's moral character and purposes. 
It is confined to this realm, and wherever it does al- 
lude to natural causes and effects, it is always inci- 
dental and for the purpose of confirming what 
it contains of moral truths and their correspond- 
ing events. This is, so to speak, only one depart- 
ment by which we may obtain knowledge of God. 
There yet remain the vast physical and mental 
realms of creation by which we may obtain differ- 
ent and additional disclosures of the divine char- 
acter and purpose. Where we behold the forces 
of nature operating, we know that they must 
emanate from the Creator, and if so, they can but 
present him in that manner and to that extent, be- 
cause the architect and builder is made known by 
the structure he designs and the uses to which he 
devotes it. So, while the Bible reveals God's char- 
acter and moral acts, the physical world, animate 
and inanimate, discloses his relation to the laws 
of the natural domain, and to the remedial means 
by which he would cure its ills and effect its 
restitution. 



MAN THE RESPONSIBLE AGENT 159 

This achievement, committed to man as his 
agent, requires that nature in these respects must 
reveal itself to man, as it has no revealer but itself 
to inform common understanding as to its rela- 
tion with God and his creatures. So, also, the 
minds of all beings make revelations of the nature 
and quality of that particular being, and of what 
it may or could do; for when once a person is 
known by observation of his moral and mental 
qualities we then apprehend how he will act in 
regard to moral questions, his own temporal af- 
fairs, and his bodily powers and health. It is 
impossible to know anything thoroughly about 
any one object without bringing to one's aid a 
knowledge of all other things to which it is in 
any wise influentially related. Accordingly, if 
we would obtain a comprehensive view of the 
revelation in the Bible and of God's providential 
ways, we need to consider in due place and degree 
any light which nature and mind may expose to 
modify or strengthen the significance of Bible 
truths or providential operations. For instance, 
in the Lord's prayer : " Give us this day our 
daily bread " : the seeming meaning is that we live 
from hand to mouth, and each day Providence is 
to furnish the supply for that day; whereas the 
course of nature reveals the full truth intended, 
which is that God causes the growth and natural 
supply of our bread, and we must make efforts to 
secure and prepare it for use, and then use it in a 
wholesome manner. This petition, taken in the 



160 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

strict sense of the words, would falsely represent 
the method of God's care, and encourage men to 
be improvident and indolent. These words of the 
Scripture represent God's providential care, while 
the nature of the case explains man's part therein, 
and aids in making them unmistakably intelligible. 
Then again, in the mental realm, if we consider 
the state of God's feelings toward his creatures, 
and the purposes he entertains as indicated in the 
known laws and phenomena of nature, and asso- 
ciate therewith Bible declarations of his benevo- 
lent character, we are aided thereby to a fuller 
understanding of his influences over the events of 
the world. In fine, we may conclude that all de- 
partments of creation have each its own revela- 
tion, and as all departments constitute a unit 
whose several departments are co-respondent and 
sympathetic, one with another, that, therefore, in 
order to understand any of them, light from the 
others is necessary, and that, to understand them 
all together, we must have their combined revela- 
tions. 



III. CONDUCT AND PROVIDENCE 

The foregoing observations may appear more 
evident in considering the moral or religious 
realm, which requires, first of all, " a conscience 
void of offense toward God and man." 

How sadly deficient and careless would such a 



MAN THE RESPONSIBLE AGENT 161 

character be if it were not sustained by intelli- 
gent and appropriate conduct. In this there 
must be the dictates of a sound and knowing 
mind, in order to direct correct conduct. And 
how the mind would go astray and become vicious 
when the moral rules are defective, and how futile 
physical occupation becomes when there is a de- 
ficiency or a vagrancy of mind or morals ruling 
over a man in any secular pursuit. 

Intelligence is necessary to preserve and develop 
a religious life and conduct. While one may be- 
come converted by simply realizing that he is a 
sinner, and remain so by the influence of God's 
grace, yet he can but make many mistakes which 
more knowledge would have enabled him to avoid, 
and he will do many evil things which, were it not 
for his good motives, would be sin. But inno- 
cence and righteous intentions are only a religious 
state, but not that active part by which we may 
do good the best and most, and develop the fac- 
ulties of our moral natures. If one, for instance, 
thinks but little of the sacredness of earthly 
things and of his physical welfare, and live in 
neglect of his health and abuse it, and then de- 
pend upon Providence for its welfare, or pray for 
the same, how can he expect any favor from God 
in either case ? For surely he first infringes upon 
the laws of God in nature, and attempts to re- 
trieve his unlawful injuries by a dubious reliance 
upon conditions which must trench upon a still 



162 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

more sacred law of acceptable prayer and God's 
personal care, as against the person's own care- 
lessness and transgression. 

Herein we discover again that if God favor 
such an one, it is because of his tender paternal 
character, which forbids any partiality or cruelty 
in his providential dealings with every one of our 
race. So that while we behold the contumacy 
of men on the one hand, as against the will and 
kindness of God on the other hand, we are met 
by the mercy of God withholding wrath and 
stooping to minister to the guilty. But there is 
a limit to this graciousness : that limit is just 
where the demands of justice are met by the con- 
ditions which God has fixed for the lawful appli- 
cation of his mercy. The application of justice 
and mercy to every one is declared in the Scrip- 
tures as being determined by the character and 
conduct of the person under consideration. But 
in natural causes and effects, as to calamities and 
benefits which are attributed to providential in- 
fluence, no perceptible difference is observed be- 
tween what happens to the good or evil ones of 
our race; or, if there is any difference, it is just 
about slight enough to show that God does not 
influence all events, but presides over the course 
of nature and its fixed laws, and interposes at 
such times as may be proper and righteous. 

Thus from all these considerations, suggested 
by things around and within us, we maintain 
God's goodness and justice, and bind the re- 



MAN THE RESPONSIBLE AGENT 163 

sponsibility of man's welfare upon his own heart 
and hands. From these premises a correct and 
scriptural interpretation of God's ways with 
man may be obtained. Thus, there must be a 
division line, so to speak, between the old absolute 
and the modern licentious modes of Bible interpre- 
tation. Everywhere in all things, in argument, 
the average or bulk of the real truth lies in the 
medium between the two extremes. So, if my 
child dies prematurely, I may not say that God 
took it, unless I may see reasons for it in his 
justice and goodness; but, on the contrary, I 
should rather consider how my care of the child 
agrees with all the laws by which God rules all 
things. 



IV. INTELLIGENCE AND PROVIDENCE 

But men mistake the principles of the Bible, 
and take their own imperfect ideas of God as a 
gauge of what everything is or should be. 
Their beliefs are as erroneous as the human mind 
may be vagrant ; but, on the other hand, they 
should consider how certain declarations of the 
Bible may comport with the character and dis- 
position which God ascribes to himself, and calls 
us to recognize distinctly and pre-eminently : such 
as his justice and goodness. Thereby they 
would be compelled, by the consistency of God's 
character and his acts, to admit that some events 
are too severe, unfair, and cruel for Providence to 



164 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

approve, condone, or even to allow, if the laws of 
nature were changeable. A biologist ascertains the 
construction, the form, the living habits of some 
extinct animals by certain characteristics of one 
or more parts of it, and we determine the nature 
and disposition of an unknown creature by what 
it does and does not; and by viewing it, we may 
ascertain what it is. Thus by reasoning back and 
forth from it to its actions, we obtain a clearer 
notion of its natural constitution, temper, and 
hitherto unknown motives and peculiar conduct. 
Neglecting this allowable and necessary method 
of viewing the acts of Providence, and the in- 
herent virtues of righteousness in God and man, 
they declare that if we fulfill the precepts of 
morality and religion, and yet disregard and vio- 
late physical law, or any law not strictly moral, 
we are worthy of acceptance and cleared from 
censure. This notion, fully justifying a hearty 
profession of godliness, is not nearly balanced 
by godly conduct; this offense is also continually 
condoned on account of human infirmities, while 
duties to material and physical things for the 
betterment of our world are viewed as having little 
relation to our religion and theories drawn from 
the Bible. 

Man is the content of all departments of cre- 
ation — the physical, mental, and moral — and is 
highly influential in each. In the moral, he af- 
fords occasion to Providence to visit in him judi- 
cially and graciously with blight or blessing. In 



MAN THE RESPONSIBLE AGENT 165 

the mental he may discover and control the forces 
of nature and procure benefits by the right, and 
injury by the wrong, use of them. He counter- 
acts most powerful evils according to his pleasure, 
while the remedial means are readily sub j ect to his 
will. He subdues refractory forces and repels 
the attacks of disease and death. The whole 
world becomes what he may make of it, and re- 
mains as it was when he remits his efforts. 

The laws of all these realms are unchangeable 
and persistent ; and unless God interpose to arrest 
cause and its effect, the vast majority of events 
in our world are produced according to the nature 
at first given to every creature and substance, 
subject to the masterful control which God gives 
to man and enjoined upon him. Therefore the 
goodness and righteousness of God forbid that he 
should cause evil to befall the good, and benefits 
to accrue to the unrighteous, or that he should 
make the lots of mankind unequal. If calamity 
destroy a multitude for no fault in them, or sick- 
ness or violence remove our dear ones from us 
forever, lay it not to the act of God, but primarily 
to the disorders of our natures and the world, and 
secondarily to the present incompetency and neg- 
lect of our race in regard to the knowledge and 
right use of the preventive means in which we 
and this world abound. 

Thus when we shall come to esteem every good 
thing as sacred, and all possibilities for good as 
obligations, and the laws of God as holy ties bind- 



166 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

ing ourselves to him, and all together as the 
grounds for a comprehensive and true religion, 
then only shall we know God fully, and realize 
that his providential administrations turn upon, 
and are decreased by the good which faithful men 
shall do and the evils which they may remedy. 

"Nor knowest thou what argument, 

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed hath lent; 
All are needed by each one, 

Nothing is fair or good alone/* 

Emerson, 



CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH 
THE MERCY OF PROVIDENCE 

I. FATHERLY CARE 

The method of Divine Providence, as set forth 
by this essay, may dispel our harrowing doubts 
and fears in regard to the supposed terribleness 
of God in his providential dealings with his 
creatures. It presents God in the kindness of his 
fatherly relation to us, according to the teachings 
of Jesus Christ and the letter and spirit of the 
New Testament, under whose laws and provisions 
God is now especially governing the world and 
ministering to its wants and miseries. He is not 
blaming us for what we could not help, as in the 
fall of Adam and the natural consequences ; but 
rather, he censures us judicially for remaining as 
Adam involved us, while we have a Saviour and 
remedies waiting to deliver us. He would win 
every one by his good and merciful treatment. 
" For as in Adam all die, yet in Christ shall all 
be made alive." Accordingly we should love 
rather than fear him — a love that fears to give 
offense. 

It was the habit of olden times to frighten man- 
kind — the good as well as the bad — by the ter- 
rors of Providence. Unfortunately, it has been 
continued by zealous teachers even in the same 
fullness under the Gospel dispensation, though it 
167 



168 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

presents the love of God to us and us to him as 
the chief and inclusive motive for our service to 
him, and for his providential care toward us. 
Teachers and people have been in the habit of 
declaring that God's adverse providences would 
surely fall upon us for certain offenses. But 
however condign a retribution this might be, yet 
any unbiased observer knows that this is not 
verified by the facts, at least, as natural punitive 
occurrences are concerned — events concerning 
which we are principally writing. It cannot be 
shown that more accidents happen to those who 
are breaking the Sabbath than to those who are 
piously observing it. Criminals are not brought 
to judgment seemingly so often by any special 
act of Providence, as through the fears and ab- 
horrence of those whom they injure. Providence 
seems to abstain, leaving the instinctive motions 
of men to act as the ministers of mercy and ven- 
geance. This suggests that the motive of terror 
is largely because of an exaggeration, by men, of 
the doctrine of providence, and is not a true 
and high motive, worthy to cause mankind to fear 
God or to become religious. The creeds of terror 
were established in large measure by the reflex of 
pagan beliefs upon the interpretation of the Holy 
Scriptures by the church; for it included all men 
as deserving perdition, and the majesty of re- 
quiring a vindication for God in great severity. 
So from an early time the church has been im- 



THE MERCY OF PROVIDENCE 169 

bued with the doctrine that all those events are 
direct from Providence and purely retributive. 



II. FATALISM AND PROVIDENCE 

The false doctrine is a species of fatalism, in 
substance, known as Calvinism. This maintains 
that whatever comes to pass was ordained by God 
from all eternity, and that he also causes every 
event to occur. This signifies that the day of 
every person's death has been appointed, and all 
the causes producing the sad result have been by 
God's enforcement, as against anything the per- 
son may do to prevent it ; and, indeed, every hor- 
rible event that men would reasonably lay to evil 
is, in one way or another, attributed to Providence, 
unrelieved by any concessions or conditions of 
leniency or mercy. 

This fatalistic basis of God's providential deal- 
ings with his creatures is utterly impossible with 
God, for he is our " Heavenly Father," and not 
our persecutor and destroyer. He cannot be gra- 
cious to one and ungracious to ''another, for " My 
ways are equal." He cannot assign one to 
Heaven and " pass by " another without a pri- 
mary regard to their respective merit or demerit. 
He cannot limit man's possible desire to be good, 
and compel by his sovereign grace an apostate 
into his favor, and entitle him to eternal rewards. 
Yet this is the basis and counterpart of the pre- 



170 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

vailing doctrine, more or less, in all creeds. The 
great Calvinistic preacher and theologian, Jona- 
than Edwards, after picturing the awful torment 
of the non-elect, was asked whether the anguish 
of the lost in perdition would not mar the bliss 
of God's people in glory. His answer, in sub- 
stance, was that they would be so changed that, 
seeing the torments of their neighbors and friends, 
even their parents and children, brothers and 
sisters, they then, looking up, would praise God 
the more, because his justice is made manifest. 



III. INJUSTICE AND PROVIDENCE 

This is the method of divine providences sup- 
posed to be based upon the doctrine as set forth 
in the Scriptures. But these believers warp the 
Scriptures by exaggerating the majesty and sov- 
ereign will of God, and minimize his goodness and 
righteousness. It is also contrary to the consti- 
tution of nature, whose remedies for all mankind 
act as specifically upon one person or creature as 
upon any other. It is contrary to the law of 
cause and effect, in which the goodness of God 
as a cause must produce only beneficial effects, 
and his righteousness must be as just to one 
creature as to another. It is contrary to the 
divine purpose of restoring the disordered world 
to order and felicity. Consistently with these 
conditions of mercy, as existing in the nature of 



THE MERCY OF PROVIDENCE 171 

things and the character of God, no act or event 
which retards improvement or creates disorder 
or injures man, except it be as a merited judg- 
ment, can be provided for and actualized by Di- 
vine Providence. 

If the prevailing doctrine of providence is 
believed, then men who are pious and devoted to 
God deserve credit for great faith in the good- 
ness and justice of God as a fathomless mystery 
of contradictions and for devotion to a being 
whose dealings with his creatures would be at 
variance with his personal assertions. For how 
can a rational creature love and serve a ruler who 
punishes or passes by him, while that creature is 
his pitiable and helpless subject? In a word, to 
believe that Providence is such as their doctrine 
represents is to stir up animosity and hatred 
against him. The chief cause which may render 
religion possible in such a case is a personal 
acknowledgment of one's degradation and sinful- 
ness, to be beyond all consideration of God's 
mercy or regard in any way. No person could 
consent to be thus as a beast in condition, and an 
accountable being in fact. Another adverse 
cause lies in a failure to recognize God's mercy, 
goodness, justice, and his paternal attributes as 
equal with his judicial and sovereign prerogatives. 

The aspect of God which such believers gaze 
upon and admire as self -condemned criminals is 
naturally repellant to reason, and to every sense 



172 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

of justice vouchsafed to our race as sinners to be 
saved and enriched by the grace of God in Jesus 
Christ our Lord. 

But the conditional method of providence, as 
existing in the evident plan of creation and in the 
benevolence of God, is that which sees and glori- 
fies God in all things. In this method and its 
operations appeal is made to the finest sensibilities 
of the human soul, to the most plausible grounds 
of human faith, and to the highest hopes and 
aspirations of all creatures destined to the world 
to come. 

" All may of three partake, 
Nothing can be so mean; 
Which, with this tincture for thy sake, 
Will not grow bright and clean." 

Herbert. 
" God moves in an open way, 
His mercies to perform; 
His footsteps bar the raging seas, 
His goodness turns the storm." 

[Adaptation.] 



CHAPTER NINETEENTH 
RELIGION AND PROVIDENCE 

I. FAITH STRENGTHENED 

The doctrine of Divine Providence, according 
to the foregoing principles, widens and intensifies 
the blessings and obligations of true religion as 
set forth in the Old and the New Testaments of 
the Jewish and Christian Bible. 

This theory of the administration of Provi- 
dence recognizes the entire creation, moral, mental 
and physical, and assigns to each of these realms 
its relative importance. In thus assigning each 
to its own sphere and allowing for its properties 
and powers as related to events, we find the only 
way to discern the goodness and righteousness of 
God in his providential dealings with his creatures, 
intelligently determine the letter and spirit of the 
Holy Scriptures, and maintain their consistency 
with facts and principles in nature. The theory 
of this book insists upon the identical and rela- 
tive importance of each realm of creation, and 
the individual objects therein. These considera- 
tions our common theology practically ignores, 
or largely omits and minimizes. Probably this 
dereliction in the popular theology is due to the 
fear that the Bible may be interpreted too much 
by principles of rationalism and naturalism, whose 
supposed tendencies were referred to and ex- 
173 



174 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

plained in our preface. This errancy of the 
prevailing theology goes so far that even viola- 
tions of the laws of health and existence are al- 
most entirely disassociated from the moral law 
of God. Consequently such violations are not 
censured, but rather pitied, and the consequences 
are viewed as the decrees of destiny; the arbiter 
is called God; the excuse for ignorance, careless- 
ness, and presumption in regard to health and 
life are put forth as providential mystery. 

To know and act according to the laws of God, 
we must properly apprehend the nature and en- 
dowments of creation, and possibly the purposes 
of God therein, the part we are to perform, and 
the extent to which our conduct may obviate — 
by improvement of the world — those interposi- 
tions of Providence which would be unnecessary 
if the world were in the better state to which the 
devoted service of man could bring it. Because 
if the world were in a perfect state there could not 
be any divine providences, and accordingly — as 
we have shown — there are such interpositions in 
proportion to the need of them; and as the need 
becomes less, so also the frequency of them. 

Thus the obligations and blessings of religion 
extend, in equable manner, to the entire creation, 
and man must dominate for good or evil. So 
serving God in all events, we are required to con- 
sider the evils from which we may deliver the 
world, and the benefits we may confer upon it and 
upon our fellow creatures. Thus we would con- 



RELIGION AND PROVIDENCE 175 

form to the purposes of Providence in happily 
restoring the world to its original estate. Simul- 
taneously, true religion would be realized and per- 
sonal perfection attained. 



II. LAW AND PROVIDENCE 

There is a wide difference between Providence 
influencing all events and all things proceeding 
according to the laws of being and motion, God 
interposing according to his pleasure; but this 
variance is not so great as that God does not 
reign and rule. It consists only in the methods. 
In regard to this, mankind are assenting to the 
prevailing doctrine, while in heart and mind they 
believe in occasional providential interpositions. 
Everybody knows what the word " interposition " 
means, and yet all refer to unusual events, won- 
dering if such are not providential occurrences. 
What does the word interposition import, but that 
God reserves his exertions and occasionally re- 
sumes them? Does God need rest? No, but the 
forces he has given to all creation accommodate 
that cessation of his exertions which, to us, seems 
like resting or reposing. 

There are principles of justice existing between 
the Creator and his responsible creatures which 
require providential interpositions to correct the 
faults, avert the crimes of men, assert the law, and 
vindicate the righteousness and sovereignty of 
God. But only now and then do the judgments 



176 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

of Providence fall upon the offenders. These 
punitive visitations are occasional, in the same 
frequency or infrequency with his gracious allot- 
ments. This appears to be so, as we see that 
criminals are no more frequently overtaken than 
the obedient are blessed by providential favors. 
This shows that the method of the divine adminis- 
tration proceeds by infrequent and occasional in- 
terpositions. 

The proceedings of providential government, 
not being absolute, but conditional, bear the ap- 
pearance of hesitation in God about doing what 
he could do. There is in it the portent of some- 
thing great, terrible, magnificent and glorious, 
which he has projected through the vicissitudes 
of our fallen world, and the disturbances thrust 
by accountable creatures into the administrations 
of its affairs. 

There are the menaces of justice and the soli- 
citations of mercy in the tardiness of his retribu- 
tions. There are the motives of usefulness, as 
Providence abstains from a continuous exertion, 
and leaves to man the perilous alternatives of do- 
ing good or evil. While the providential visita- 
tions are thus consistently infrequent and 
probationary, yet sometimes they are distinct 
enough to mark the individual offender and the 
particular sin which provoked the judgment of 
God. We know of a railroad engineer who glee- 
fully threw his little dog into the red-hot furnace 
of his locomotive and shut the door. Some time 



RELIGION AND PROVIDENCE 177 

elapsed, when he ran his engine from the sidetrack 
in front of an express train, the time of whose 
coming he was perfectly aware of. His locomotive 
overturned upon him, and the fire from the identi- 
cal furnace burned his crushed body until he died, 
uttering unavailing cries for deliverance. There 
is no way of proving that this was effected by di- 
vine influence upon his mind as against his certain 
knowledge of the time the other train was due, 
but it bears much of the marks of God's judg- 
ment against atrocious cruelty. 

There is another man, lingering in pain and 
helplessness, still more suggestive of the punitive 
character of God's providences. This man at- 
tempted to plow in his field with two partially 
broken colts, which in their untrained condition 
were not so manageable as he desired them to be. 
He unhitched one of them, fastened it to fence, 
and with a club beat and kicked it in a most 
frenzied manner as long as he was able, and then 
with a great club struck it down with a blow on 
its head. He habitually committed these atroci- 
ties upon his distracted animals. Now, his chief 
brutality was in kicking them about their breasts, 
abdomens, and legs. One day he felt creeping 
pain and disability in his feet, which he had not 
hurt in any way. These feelings passed into his 
legs, and after some time spread over his entire 
body and put him in an incurable condition. Sev- 
eral physicians have examined him, and consulting 
medical books and their own experiences, have not 



178 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

found any similar case, and no discoverable cause 
for this affliction. 

It is significant that the members with which he 
abused his animals are those in which his malady 
commenced, and afterward spread through his 
entire system. It is true that the diffusion of an 
ailment from one part of our bodies over all is a 
natural occurrence, but it should be remembered 
that God administers his providences by infusing 
his blessings or his judgments into and by the 
force of the laws he has ordained for each partic- 
ular and peculiar creature. 

III. RETRIBUTIONS AND PROVIDENCE 

Judgments must be inflicted by Providence in 
order that mankind shall recognize his existence 
and authority. These are not applied in every 
case of crime, any more than are kindly special 
interpositions in reward of every good act of 
man. The marks of a well-balanced divine ad- 
ministration are in evidence in general over our 
world. All acts of God toward our race are 
tinged with mercy and justice and equably admin- 
istered, just as God desires to prevail over the 
errancy of man by the restraining quality of 
mercy and the deterrent quality of equal justice 
— no more and no less than is necessary to effect 
the correction of even the worst of offenders. 
But if God's interpositions are identical with the 
common events of our world, then this evidence of 



RELIGION AND PROVIDENCE 179 

equal mercy and justice by him does not appear, 
but, rather, events contravene any such equable- 
ness in his providential administration. In the 
real method Providence vindicates his character 
and government, and presents to mankind solici- 
tations to our love and obedience as our Heavenly 
Father; while, on the other hand, by his judg- 
ments now and then against wrong-doing, he 
points out the right and warns us of the dan- 
gers of unrighteousness. Thus the belief in oc- 
casional and not absolute providential ministra- 
tions recognizes that the care of God is looking 
toward, a future state, for which he would have 
us prepare in this life, and that in all things he 
is regarding the souls of men as of chief interest 
to himself and them. 

These gracious methods of his providences, as 
recounted throughout this essay, afford the high- 
est motives and the greatest comfort to a faith- 
ful soul in times of distress and danger. A be- 
liever in this method of Divine Providence verified 
this in greatest peril during our Civil War. As 
day broke and the picket firing commenced, he 
looked up from his bed on the earth and consider- 
ing his body as secondary in importance with 
Providence, he confessed his sins, prayed for for- 
giveness, and committed himself to God, being 
entirely confident that it would be well with his 
soul, whatever might befall his body from nat- 
ural causes. Eighty thousand men on one side 
faced and fought seventy thousand on the other; 



180 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

on that day twenty thousand men fell. This 
man was exposed to the dangers of infantry and 
artillery fire, shot and shell, and at one time about 
two hundred wounded, dying, and dead men lay 
around him. He declared that during all that 
day at no time did he feel the slightest fear, and 
that he had this composure from having surren- 
dered his body to the casualties of the circum- 
stances and having committed the keeping of his 
soul to God, realizing that his body was to be 
cared for subject to the operations and dominance 
of laws which control all things physical : he gave 
his body up to the accidents of the battle, while he 
committed the other to the supreme and unfailing 
care of his God and Saviour. 

We simply pause here, for the moment, to in- 
quire of the thoughtful reader whether this is not 
the manner in which we should live and meet the 
events of our lives? 

A quite opposite state of things and of our 
minds cannot but prevail when we are under the 
sway of the false doctrine of absolute and uncon- 
ditional providential administration. The logic 
of this doctrine compels us to believe that every 
evil was influenced upon us in some way or other 
by the will and ordination of God. 

Under this belief a certain hard-working and 
scanty farmer, losing his field of strawberries by 
frost, became so exasperated against God as the 
author, as he believed, of his great loss, that he 



RELIGION AND PROVIDENCE 181 

looked up to Heaven, raged, shook his fist at God, 
and cursed and defied him. 

Another man lost his first and only child by 
disease. He was brought up in a Christian 
Church and believed in an absolute Providence. 
As he thought that God had doomed his child to 
death, and had sent disease upon it for no cause 
except that of cruelty, he accused and cursed his 
Maker, took to drinking, and now cries out in 
one of our great cities that he hates and defies 
the " Jehovah of the Jews." 

A very refined and devoted Christian mother 
lost her only daughter by diphtheria. This daugh- 
ter was her only comfort and companion in the 
sorrows of widowhood. She was also a firm be- 
liever in an absolute and unconditional Divine 
Providence; but by brooding over what she felt 
was a cruel allotment, she, instead of suspecting 
that God did not influence this sore bereavement, 
held on to her belief and turned against him, and 
at last died in sorrow, bewailing her lot and be- 
wraying her Creator, to her the " unknown God." 

IV. THE REAL GROUND OF HOPE 

But in turning from these saddening misap- 
prehensions of God to the truth concerning them, 
we are inspired with desire to glorify him for his 
beneficent ministries against the evils which he 
would enable us to remedy. We find comfort in 



182 PROVIDENCE AND CALAMITY 

being assured by the achievements of men, facili- 
ties in nature, the kindly provisions of God, that 
human effort under him shall triumph; for his 
precious Word covenants his succor and help fra- 
grant with approbation and good will. To vin- 
dicate his goodness and righteousness is to be like 
him ; the measure of merit is the gauge of reward ; 
service under law has the guarantee of the law; 
escape from danger and bondage is the assurance 
of safety. 

The pilot spies the friendly light 
That warns them off the rocky shore, 

The watchman cries through darkest night, 
Escape ye! Shift ye, rudder, sail and oar. 

God enforces all his laws ; his laws are the out- 
let of his goodness; his goodness declares his 
fatherhood; his fatherhood ensures his providen- 
tial care. 

The kindly arm of God protects our race; 
With love diffused, and boundless grace, 
His favors in equal measure flow, 
While sweet righteousness rules all below. 



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